AND  WALT  WHITMAN 


ANNE  GILCHRIST  AND 
WALT  WHITMAN 


BY 
ELIZABETH    PORTER    GOULD 

Author  of 
"GEMS  FROM  WALT  WHITMAN" 


PHILADELPHIA 
DAVID    McKAY,    PUBLISHER 

1022    MARKET    STREET 


Copyright,  1900,  by  DAVID  McKAY 


Anne  Gilchrist  and  Walt  Whitman 


When,  in  England,  in  June,  1869,  Madox  Brown 
put  into  the  hands  of  Anne  Gilchrist  Mr.  William 
Michael  Rossetti's  Selections  from  Walt  Whitman, 
he  little  dreamed  of  the  result. 

Mrs.  Gilchrist,  having  heard  nothing  but  ill- 
words  of  the  poems,  opened  the  book  with  feelings 
"  partly  of  indifference,  partly  of  antagonism."  But 
as  she  read  .... 

"The  Soul! 

Forever  and  forever — longer  than  soil  is  brown  and  solid — 
longer  than  water  ebbs  and  flows." 

"  Each  of  us  inevitable ; 

Each  of  us  limitless — each  of  us  with  his  or  her  right  upon 

the  earth, 
Each  of  us  allowed  the  eternal  purports  of  the  earth," 

and  other  selections  in  the  book,  she  became  con 
scious  of  a  new  and  most  powerful  influence  affect 
ing  her. 

"  I  can  read  no  other  book,"  she  wrote  Rossetti 
a  fortnight  later.  "  It  holds  me  entirely  spell 
bound,  and  I  go  through  it  again  and  again  with 
deepening  delight  and  wonder." 

3 


680308 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

This  new,  and,  he  confessed,  unexpected  link  in 
their  friendship  so  pleased  Rossetti  that  he  begged 
to  loan  her  his  own  complete  copy  of  the  poems ; 
also  a  letter  the  poet  had  written  him  concerning 
his  Selections,  in  which  he  offered  his  friendship. 
("  Permit  me  to  offer  you  my  friendship.")  Any 
one  like  her,  he  said,  who  so  valued  that  "  glorious 
man  Whitman,  one  day  to  be  known  as  one  of  the 
greatest  sons  of  Earth,"  ought  to  read  the  whole 
of  him.  Considered  abstractly  and  as  a  whole,  the 
sound  of  the  entire  book  was  to  him  "  like  a  por 
tentous  roll  of  chorus,  such  as  the  '  The  Lord  God 
Omnipotent  Reigneth,'  in  Handel."  In  a  manly  way 
he  referred  to  the  doubtful  passages  in  the  poems. 
This  she  fully  understood,  for,  en  accepting  the 
gift,  she  wrote  she  was  certain  that  that  "  great  and 
divinely  beautiful  nature  could  not  infuse  any  poison 
into  the  wine  he  had  poured  out  for  them."  She 
somewhat  distrusted  her  powers,  however,  as  a 
critic,  being  averse  to  criticism ;  but  "  what  I  like," 
she  wrote,  "  I  grasp  firmly  and  silently ;  what  I  do 
not  like,  I  prefer  to  let  go  silently  too." 

After  a  still  further  reading,  she  wrote  again,  "  I 
had  not  dreamed  that  words  could  cease  to  be 
words  and  become  electric  streams  like  these.  I 
do  assure  you  that,  strong  as  I  am,  I  feel  some 
times  as  if  I  had  not  bodily  strength  to  read  many 
of  these  poems.  In  some  of  them  there  is  such  a 
weight  of  emotion,  such  a  tension  of  the  heart, 

4 


Walt  Whitman 

that  mine  refuses  to  beat  under  it — stands  quite 
still — and  I  am  obliged  to  lay  the  book  down  for 
a  while  ;  .  .  .  then  there  is  such  calm  wisdom 
and  strength  of  thought,  such  a  cheerful  breadth 
of  sunshine,  that  the  soul  bathes  in  them,  renewed 
and  strengthened.  Living  impulses  flow  out  of 
these  that  make  me  exult  in  life,  and  yet  look 
longingly  towards  the  '  superb  vistas  of  Death.' ' 
(Song  at  Sunset.") 

If  the  poems  did  not  seem  to  her  equal  in  power 
and  beauty,  she  felt  they  were  "  vital ;"  that  "  they 
grew,  they  were  not  made."  She  compared  it  all 
to  the  growth  of  a  forest  rather  than  the  making 
of  a  palace  or  cathedral.  "  Are  not  the  hitherto 
accepted  masterpieces  of  literature  akin  rather  to 
noble  architecture?"  she  asked.  She  so  felt  the 
intense  humanity  of  this  "  great-souled  American," 
that  she  cried  out  with  the  poet  himself,  at  the 
close  of  his  book, 

"  Camerado,  this  is  no  book. 

Who  touches  this,  touches  a  man  !"     (So  Long.) 

The  long,  interesting  letters,  born  of  this  new  ex 
perience,  became  a  signal  proof  to  Rossetti  that 
the  friendship  which  united  them  was  a  "  matter  of 
essence,  and  not  merely  of  circumstances."  Her 
"  resplendent  enthusiasm  "  charmed  him.  "  It  is," 
he  wrote,  "  the  earnest  of  the  boundless  enthusiasm 
Walt  Whitman  will  one  day  excite,  and  continue 

5 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

exciting  for  ages."  He  confessed  he  knew  not 
where  could  be  found  a  woman  true-hearted  and 
brave  enough  to  express  herself  with  "  such  de 
cision  and  perfectness  of  perception "  as  she  had 
done. 

The  acquaintance  of  Anne  Gilchrist  and  William 
Michael  Rossetti,  had  begun  some  nine  years  be 
fore,  when  her  husband  was  writing  his  Life  of 
William  \Blake.  They,  with  four  little  children, 
were  then  living  at  6  Cheyne  Row,  next  door  to 
Carlyle.  He,  as  a  well -equipped  art-critic  on  the 
periodical  press,  and  she,  capable  of  furthering  his 
development  by  sympathy  and  help,  lifted  their 
daily  life  to  that  plane  which  could  make  such 
gifted  souls  as  William  Michael  and  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti  feel  at  home.  Living  almost  by  them 
selves,  they  had  attained  a  "twinship  of  nature," 
says  one  in  a  review  of  the  Life  of  Blake  (N. 
A.  Review  of  October,  1864).  Encouraged  by  her 
husband,  Anne  had  already  written  some  short 
articles ;  one  on  "  Electricity  "  (for  Once  a  Week), 
"A  Glance  at  the  Vegetable  Kingdom,"  and 
"Whales  and  Whalemen"  (for  Chambers'  Maga 
zine).  Her  first  article,  "  Our  Nearest  Relation," 
published  in  1859,  had  attracted  the  notice  of 
Dickens,  who  showed  it  to  the  Carlyles.  (The 
Academy  of  December  5,  1885,  in  notice  of  her 
death.)  Though  her  school-life  came  to  an  end  at 
sixteen,  she  had  continued  a  general  study,  music 

6 


Walt  Whitman 

being  a  specialty.  The  death,  in  her  nineteenth 
year,  of  her  only  brother,  to  whom  she  was  devoted, 
had  aroused  her  whole  being  with  questions  she 
could  not  answer.  Her  depth  of  nature  was  irri 
tated  with  the  commonplace  platitudes  of  friends, 
who,  to  her  mind,  attached  too  much  importance 
to  creeds  and  doctrines.  "  They  are  mere  defini 
tions  after  all,"  she  cried.  It  seemed  to  her  a  very 
considerable  thing  just  to  believe  in  God,  "  the 
greatest  thing  allowed  to  mankind."  She  strug 
gled  against  limitations  of  all  kinds,  even  daring  to 
say,  on  hearing  "of  the  confirmation  of  a  friend, 
that  if  she  were  forced  to  be  confirmed  she  would 
have  to  submit,  but  she  trusted  she  should  escape. 
All  this  intellectual  struggle  she  finally  silenced  in 
aiming,  as  she  said,  to  "  fulfill  the  ends  for  which 
we  were  created ;  that  is  to  say,  develop  to  the 
utmost  the  nature  which  God  has  given  us."  In 
this  light  she  lived  a  growing  life  with  her  widowed 
mother,  studying  books  and  people.  She  found 
the  writings  of  the  Transcendentalists,  such  as 
Emerson,  a  "  sort  of  balance  to  her  usual  studies  in 
Comte."  She  felt  the  next  generation  would  call 
Emerson  a  great  man,  though  his  writings  were 
then  treated  with  a  "  good  deal  of  contempt  and 
ridicule."  She  gloried  in  Electicism.  "Truth," 
she  said,  "is  to  be  found  complete  in  no  man's 
system,  but  a  portion  of  it  in  all  systems."  Lighter 
works  claimed  her  attention.  She  felt  that  Maria 

7 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

Edgeworth  gave  "  fine  deeds  and  fine  talk,  but 
never  a  human  being  ;  she  was  evidently  one  who 
observed  acutely,  but  neither  thought  nor  felt 
deeply,"  while  the  "truthful  simplicity  and  earn 
estness  of  feeling  made  Miss  Bremer  a  beautiful 
painter  of  domestic  life."  All  this  Anne  was  feel 
ing  and  saying  at  twenty  years  of  age,  when  there 
came  into  her  life  the  absorbing  love  of  Alexander 
Gilchrist,  one  who  could  "  fulfill  her  aspirations, 
realize  her  ideal  of  a  true  marriage,  be  a  friend  and 
helper  as  well  as  lover."  She  did  not  know  how  to 
describe  him  to  her  intimate  friends,  on  announcing 
her  engagement,  except  by  telling  them  that  he 
was  "  altogether,  both  in  intellect  and  heart,  great, 
noble  and  beautiful."  Sweet  pictures  are  given  us 
of  the  happy  days  after  the  marriage,  three  years 
later,  in  1851  (February  4th),  when  they  went  to 
York  to  collect  materials  for  the  Life  of  Etty  \hz 
husband  was  writing ;  also  at  Lyme  Regis,  within 
sight  and  sound  of  the  sea,  when  "  daily  writing 
and  reading,  daily  music  and  daily  walks  "  were 
theirs — crowned  by  happy  evenings,  when  he  read 
aloud  earnest  books,  while  she  worked  with  the 
needle,  or  "  read  "  music,  playing  and  singing  all 
that  he  selected  for  her.  In  this  life  the  first  child, 
Percy,  was  born.  The  second,  Beatrice,  came  to 
them  when  they  were  living  their  few  secluded 
years  at  Guildford.  That  the  Life  of  Blake,  on 
which  Mr.  Gilchrist  was  engaged,  might  be  better 

8 


THOMAS  CARLYLE. 


Walt  Whitman 

done,  they  decided  to  settle  in  London,  where 
Blake's  "Illustrations  of  the  Book  of  Job  "  had 
inspired  him.  Writing  to  Carlyle,  to  whom  he  had 
become  of  real  assistance  in  obtaining  prints  of 
portraits  and  costumes  for  the  Frederick  he  was 
then  writing,  the  young  husband  asked  his  advice 
as  to  a  house  there.  The  sage  of  Chelsea  replied 
that  he  did  not  "  dare  advise  anybody  into  a  house 
(almost  as  dangerous  as  advising  him  to  a  wife, 
except  that  divorce  is  easier),  but,  if  heaven  should 
please  to  rain  him  accidentally  into  the  house  next 
door  he  should  esteem  it  a  kindness.  Thus  it 
happened  that,  in  1856,  the  Gilchrists  settled  at 
6  Cheyne  Row,  where  they  lived  for  six  years. 
There  were  born  their  two  other  children,  Herbert 
and  Grace ;  and  there,  as  has  been  said,  began 
the  friendship  of  William  Michael  Rossetti.  He 
found  in  both  of  them  a  "  large  fund  of  intelligence 
and  sympathy,  and,  in  neither,  the  least  pretence  or 
affectation.  A  more  evidently  well-assorted  couple 
there  could  hardly  be."  He  was  observant  of  their 
friendly  relations  with  the  Carlyles.  Anne  would 
relieve  her  cares  by  having  a  chat  with  "lively" 
Jane,  who  possessed  a  "  charming  audacity  and 
winning  gaiety  of  manner."  In  many  little  ways 
each  helped  the  other.  Jane  looked  up  to  Anne 
as  a  fine  housekeeper.  As  Carlyle  thought  Anne 
made  the  best  bread,  Jane  took  lessons  of  her. 
Not  proving  an  apt  pupil,  she  asked  her  one  day 

9 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

"to  stand  over  her"  while  she  made  it  herself. 
"  A  precious  bother  I  am,  to  be  sure,  to  you,"  said 
Jane,  "  but  if  I  can  never  reward  you  on  earth  you 
are  pretty  certain  to  have  two  little  additional  wings 
for  it  in  heaven  !  " 

In  this  daily  life  as  neighbors,  the  Gilchrists  saw 
much  of  the  strength  as  well  as  weakness  of 
Carlyle.  Jane  told  them  one  day  that  he  never 
complained  of  serious  things,  but  if  his  finger  was 
cut  "  the  house  turned  upside  down  ;  one  must  hold 
it,  and  another  get  plaster,"  etc.  At  this  time  he 
was  engaged  in  writing  his  Frederick.  In  his 
pauses  from  work  he  enjoyed  hearing  Anne's 
music.  He  became  interested  in  Mr.  Gilchrist's 
Life  of  Blake  all  the  more  because  he  possessed  the 
"Job  Illustrations."  It  was  through  a  letter  he 
had  written  Mr.  Gilchrist  on  the  appearance  of  his 
Life  of  Etty  that  the  acquaintance  was  begun.  He 
had  then  declared  that  the  book  was  done  in  a 
"  vigorous,  sympathetic,  vivacious  spirit,  promising 
the  delineation  actual  and  intelligible  of  a  man 
extremely  worth  knowing,"  while  their  reading  of 
his  Life  of  Sterling  had  led  them  to  feel  that 
"  surely  never  before  was  there  in  any  man  the  union 
of  such  Titan  strength  and  keenest  insight,  with 
soft,  tenderest,  pitying  gentleness.  Never  surely  a 
man  who  had  so  the  power  of  winning  deep,  rever 
ent  heart's  love  from  his  readers."  They  felt  that 
his  interpretation  of  Giotto's  portrait  of  Dante  in 

10 


Walt  Whitman 

Hero  Worship  might  stand  word  for  word  as  a 
description  of  himself. 

One  day  Anne  asked  Jane  what  she  thought  her 
husband's  best  work.  "  The  French  Revolution''  she 
replied,  "  was  her  favorite,  though  perhaps  Crom 
well was  the  best- written  book."  Carlyle  himself 
once  said  to  Mr.  Gilchrist  that  if  he  were  on  his 
death-bed,  the  only  thing  he  had  done  to  give  him 
any  pleasure  was  the  Cromwell,  for  it  "  dispersed  the 
lies,"  and  revealed  him  as  "  all  men  would  some 
day  see  him  to  have  been." 

The  sympathy  of  the  Carlyles  was  very  helpful 
to  the  Gilchrists  in  the  bitter  days  when  scarlet 
fever  held  the  lives  of  their  children,  and,  letting  go 
of  them,  seized  the  husband  to  a  fatal  result.  He 
was  only  thirty -three  years  of  age  (born  1828) — 
just  the  age  of  Anne.  He  was  full  of  plans  for 
work,  a  life  of  Wordsworth  and  others  being  in 
mind.  All  efforts  for  her  to  remain  as  a  neighbor, 
after  the  last  sad  ministries  were  over,  proved 
unavailing.  She]could  not  stay  where  life  had  been 
so  full  of  blessing.  She  finally  found  a  little  old- 
fashioned,  tile-roofed  cottage  in  Shottermill,  a 
quaint  Hampshire  village  a  mile  from  Haslemere, 
once  a  coaching  town  en  route  for  Portsmouth  and 
London.  Here  on  the  summit  of  a  steep  little 
Surrey  hill,  at  the  base  of  which  flowed  a  brook, 
Anne  Gilchrist  and  her  children  were  settled  three 
months  after  her  husband's  death.  Her  heart 

ii 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

turned  more  and  more  to  her  children.  This 
mother-love  Jane  Carlyle  expressed  more  forcibly 
than  elegantly  the  day  the  family  left  her  neighbor 
hood,  when  she  said  to  a  friend,  who  told  it,  "  Mrs. 
Gilchrist  would  skin  and  bury  herself  alive  for  the 
benefit  of  her  children." 

Here  among  the  Surrey  hills  Anne  Gilchrist 
took  up  life  again,  not,  as  she  said,  in  the  presence 
of  the  one  with  whom  she  had  lived  eleven  such 
full  years,  but  with  the  presence.  "  Alec's  spirit  is 
with  me  ever/'  she  wrote  ;  "  presides  in  my  home, 
speaks  to  me  in  every  sweet  scene  ;  broods  over  the 
peaceful  valley ;  haunts  the  grand,  wild  hill-tops ; 
shines  gloriously  forth  in  setting  sun  and  moon 
and  stars."  When  sad  memories  almost  crushed 
her,  she  thanked  God  for  hard  work,  that,  like 
harness  to  an  overtired  horse,  kept  her  up.  She 
began  at  once  to  finish  the  Life  of  Blake,  when  her 
friends,  the  Rossettis,  proved  friends  indeed.  They 
had  been  deeply  impressed  with  her  "  strong  sense — 
common  sense  and  mental  acumen  combined" — 
revealed  under  her  deep  sorrow,  also  with  her  aim 
to  make  the  home  a  "  centre  of  mental  as  well  as 
family  vital  energy." 

At  last,  in  1 863,  with  their  help,  the  Life  of  Blake, 
that  "  beloved  task  which  had  kept  her  head  above 
water  in  the  deep  sea  of  affliction,"  was  finished. 
Carlyle,  Browning  and  others  sent  words  of  appre 
ciation  on  its  publication. 

12 


Walt  Whitman 

Later,  she  wrote  an  article  for  Macmillari s  Maga 
zine  on  "  The  Indestructibility  of  Force."  But  that, 
she  said,  should  be  her  last  attempt  for  many  a 
day.  She  decided  to  devote  herself  wholly  to  her 
children.  "After  all,"  she  wrote,  "they  will  not 
always  be  children ;  and  if  I  have  it  in  me  to  do 
anything  worth  doing  with  my  pen,  why,  I  can  do 
it  ten  years  hence,  when  I  shall  have  completed 
my  task  so  far  as  direct  instruction  of  the  children 
goes.  I  shall  only  be  forty-six  then,  not  in  my 
dotage."  She  was  convinced  that  a  divided  aim 
was  not  only  "  most  harassing  to  a  conscientious 
disposition,  but  quite  fatal  to  success — to  doing 
one's  very  best  in  either." 

In  this  belief  she  filled  her  days  with  some 
teaching,  considerable  reading,  a  little  music  she 
"  could  not  do  without,"  attention  to  an  aged,  sick 
mother,  and  devotion  to  her  children.  She  lived  a 
tranquil,  sequestered  mode  of  life  "with  much 
solitude  and  no  luxury  in  it."  In  this  she  was  a 
"fanatical  believer."  Her  great  recreation  was  her 
"glorious  walks"  across  the  breezy  heaths,  and 
into  the  deep  lanes  of  Guildford  and  Haslemere. 

"If  I  go  out  feeling  ever  so  jaded,  irritable,  dis 
pirited,"  she  said,  "when  I  find  myself  up  there 
alone  (for  unless  I  have  perfect  stillness  and  quiet 
ness,  and  my  thoughts  are  as  free  as  a  bird,  the 
walk  does  not  seem  to  do  me  good),  care  and  fa 
tigue  are  all  shaken  off,  and  life  seems  as  grand  and 

13 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

sweet  and  noble  a  thing  as  the  scene  my  bodily 
eyes  rest  on — and  if  sad  thoughts  come,  they  have 
hope  and  sweetness  so  blended  with  them  that  I 
hardly  know  them  to  be  sad — and  I  return  to  my 
little  chicks  quite  bright  and  rested,  and  fully  alive 
to  the  fact  that  they  are  the  sweetest,  loveliest 
chicks  in  the  whole  world  ; — and  '  Giddy '  (Grace) 
says,  '  mamma  has  shut  up  her  box  of  sighs.' ' 

Mrs.  Gilchrist  felt  there  was  no  finer  country  for 
her  walks  than  this  region  of  Shottermill  with  its 
breezy  uplands,  its  pine-clad  hills,  its  undulating 
lands  over  which  grew  the  purple  heather.  She 
walked  with  an  even,  light  step,  while  every  aspect 
of  Nature  was  assimilated.  She  was  one  of  Na 
ture's  own  daughters,  to  whom  she  opened  her 
soul. 

Besides  this  companionship,  Anne  was  rich  in 
her  friends.  Both  Dante  Gabriel  and  William 
Michael  Rossetti  were  frequent  visitors.  When 
they  brought  to  her  home  their  sister  Christina, 
she  thoroughly  enjoyed  the  "  unaffected  simplicity 
and  gentleness,  kindness  to  the  children,"  which  her 
visits  revealed.  It  was  while  she  was  sitting  under 
the  yew-tree  in  this  Brookbank  home,  one  Septem 
ber  day  in  1866,  that  the  card  of  Mr.  Alfred 
Tennyson  was  put  into  her  hands.  He  had  come 
with  his  wife  to  see  a  place,  about  to  be  sold,  con 
cerning  which  they  had  corresponded.  While  she 
was  preparing  to  accompany  them  to  the  estate, 

14 


Walt  Whitman 

Tennyson  amused  himself  with  her  seven  year  old 
Grace,  as  she  sat  on  his  knee.  Afterwards,  when 
they  were  walking  up  a  hill  together,  Tennyson 
said  to  Mrs.  Gilchrist,  "  I  admire  that  little  girl  of 
yours.  How  many  children  have  you  ?" 

"  Four,"  she  replied,  upon  which  he  answered 
hastily,  "  Quite  enough,  Quite  enough  " — much  to 
the  amusement  of  the  mother. 

In  referring  to  this  walk  with  Tennyson,  Mrs. 
Gilchrist  said  she  felt  singularly  happy  and  free 
from  restraint  in  his  presence — a  sense  of  a  "  benefi 
cent,  generous,  nobly  humane  nature  being  com 
bined  with  his  intellectual  greatness."  The  son 
Herbert  says  that  the  children  never  forgot  the 
poet,  as,  in  his  long  dark  cloak  and  big  hat,  his 
tall,  gaunt  figure  "shuffled  across  the  long,  un 
equally-shaped  drawing-room "  to  stand  before 
Blake's  water-color,  "  Elijah  Mounted  in  the  Fiery 
Chariot."  "  Every  inch  a  king,"  the  mother  said 
in  describing  him,  "features  massive,  eyes  very 
grave  and  penetrating,  hair  long,  still  very  dark, 
and  though  getting  thin,  falls  in  such  a  way  as  to 
give  a  peculiar  beauty  to  the  mystic  head  ;"  while 
Mrs.  Tennyson  seemed  to  her  to  be  a  "sweet,  grace 
ful  woman  with  singularly  winning  gentle  manners," 
but  looking  "painfully  fragile  and  wan." 

Both  the  poet  and  his  wife  appreciated  the  efforts 
of  Mrs.  Gilchrist  in  assisting  them  to  buy  a  place 
in  that  vicinity.  But  ere  settling  permanently,  they 

IS 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

decided  to  try  the  climate  by  living  awhile  at 
"  Greyshot."  While  Anne  extended  her  help  in 
furnishing  the  house,  she  entertained  them  two  days 
in  Brookbank.  Upon  their  being  settled  in  "  Grey- 
shot,"  she  occasionally  dined  with  them.  At  one 
time,  among  the  subjects  freely  discussed  was  the 
Queen's  kindness  to  Tennyson.  Her  manner  to 
wards  him,  said  Mrs.  Tennyson,  was  "  childlike 
and  charming.  They  both  gave  their  opinions 
freely."  Anne  never  forgot  a  walk  home  one 
night  with  Tennyson  when  they  discussed  Spencer's 
Nebular  Hypothesis  and  Illogical  Geology,  books 
she  had  just  been  reading.  She  said  he  "talked 
gloriously"  of  immortality  as  well  as  materialism. 
Referring  to  one  of  their  Haslemere  rambles,  she 
said  that  though  he  was  short-sighted,  he  was  most 
observant.  In  order  to  see  the  tiny  movement  of 
a  number  of  springs  bubbling  up  through  the  sand 
to  which  she  was  calling  his  attention,  he  put  his 
face  almost  to  the  water  as  he  lay  down  near  the 
edge  of  the  brook. 

It  was  through  the  agent  Mrs.  Gilchrist  finally 
found  for  the  Tennysons  that  "  Green  Hill,"  after 
wards  improved  and  called  "  Aldworth,"  was 
bought  at  a  moderate  price.  "  I  do  think,"  said 
Anne,  after  the  purchase,  "  if  ever  there  was  a  place 
made  for  a  poet  to  live  in,  this  is  the  spot — thirty- 
six  acres,  half-coppice  above,  three  large  fields  and 
a  little  old  farm-house  below."  She  ever  recalled 

16 


ALFRED  TENNYSON. 


Walt  Whitman 

with  delight  Tennyson's  feeling  concerning  it. 
"  He  was  so  pleased/'  she  said,  "  a  sort  of  childish 
glee  that  was  beautiful  to  see,  contrasting  curiously 
enough  with  his  saturnine  moods."  Again  she 
noticed  his  excellent  spirits  the  following  year — 
1868 — when  occurred  the  laying  of  the  corner 
stone  for  the  new  house,  with  its  inscription, 
"  Prosper  thou  the  work  of  our  hands,  O  prosper 
thou  our  handiwork."  After  the  ceremony,  which 
included  a  few  appropriate  words  of  a  friend,  Mrs. 
Gilchrist  seized  a  few  moments,  before  post,  to 
write  Mrs.  Tennyson.  She  knew  she  would  have 
a  special  interest,  for  the  change  of  name  to  Aid- 
worth  arose  from  the  fact  that  some  of  her  family 
came  from  a  village  of  that  name,  where  was  a 
curious  old  church  containing  tombs  of  her  Sell- 
wood  ancestors.  (From  Tennyson's  Memoirs?) 

When  by  the  summer  of  the  following  year 
(1869)  they  were  settled  in  the  "very  charming" 
new  house,  neighborly  calls  were  made.  Often,  at 
the  top  of  Blackdown,  Tennyson  would  take  his 
friends,  sit  on  the  heather  and  enjoy  the  sunset. 
Thus,  on  the  site  Mrs.  Gilchrist,  as  Lady  Tenny 
son  said  in  her  Journal,  took  such  "  endless  trouble  " 
to  help  obtain  for  them,  the  poet-laureate  and  his 
wife  lived  restful  years,  and  there  they  both  died. 
It  was  while  living  in  this  neighborhood,  in  "  dear 
little  Brookbank,"  that  the  poems  of  Walt  Whit 
man  came  into  Anne  Gilchrist's  life,  the  reading  of 
2  17 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

which  was,  as  she  said,  "  truly  a  new  birth  to  her 
soul."  "  What  more  can  you  ask  of  the  words  of  a 
man's  mouth,"  she  wrote  Rossetti,  "  than  that  they 
should  absorb  into  you  as  food  and  air,  to  appear 
again  in  your  strength,  gait,  face — that  they  should 
be  fibre  and  filter  to  your  blood,  joy  and  gladness  to 
your  whole  nature  ?"  She  was  persuaded  that  one 
great  source  of  this  "  kindling,  vitalizing  power — 
the  great  source — was  the  grasp  laid  upon  the 
present,  the  fearless  and  comprehensive  dealing 
with  reality."  This  "  athlete  full  of  rich  words,  full 
of  joy,  takes  you  by  the  hand  and  turns  your  face 
straight-forwards."  She  used  to  think  it  was  great 
"to  disregard  happiness,  to  press  on  to  a  high  goal 
careless,  disdainful  of  it."  Now  she  fully  saw  there 
was  nothing  so  great  as  "to  be  capable  of  happi 
ness  ;"  to  pluck  it  out  "  each  moment  and  whatever 
happens;"  to  find  that  one  can  ride  "as  gay 
and  buoyant  on  the  angry,  menacing,  tumul 
tuous  waves  of  life,  as  on  those  that  glide  and 
glitter  under  a  clear  sky ;"  that  it  is  not  "  defeat 
and  wretchedness  which  come  out  of  the  storm  of 
Adversity,  but  strength  and  calmness."  As  to  the 
words  he  uses,  she  felt  it  was  not  mere  delight  they 
gave ;  that  the  sweet  singers  could  give  too  in  their 
degree ;  but  they  gave  such  life  and  health  as 
enabled  us  "  to  pluck  delights  for  ourselves  out  of 
every  hour  of  the  day,  and  taste  the  sunshine  that 
ripened  the  corn  in  the  crust  we  eat."  She  often 

18 


Walt  Whitman 

seemed  to  herself  to  do  that.  She  found  a  wonder 
ful,  inspiring  comfort  in  the  magnificent  faith  in, 
and  love  for,  "sane  and  sacred  death,"  who,  in  the 
language  of  this  poet,  came  not  as  a  terror,  but  as 
the  "  holiest  minister  of  heaven." 

"Rich,  florid,  loosener  of  the  stricture-knot  called  life, 
Sweet,  peaceful,  welcome  Death." — (Death's  Valley.) 

"  Come  lovely  and  soothing  death. 

Undulate  round  the  world,  serenely  arriving,  arriving, 

In  the  day,  in  the  night,  to  all,  to  each. 

Sooner  or  later,  delicate  death. 

•  *••*••* 

Praised  be  the  fathomless  universe, 
For  life  and  joy,  and  for  objects  and  knowledge  curious, 
And  for  love,  sweet  love — but  praise !  praise !  praise  ! 
For  the  sure-en  winding  arms  of  cool-enfolding  death." 

— (Memories  of  Lincoln . ) 

"  At  the  last,  tenderly, 

From  the  walls  of  the  powerful  fortressed  house, 

From  the  clasp  of  the  knitted  locks,  from  the  keep  of  the 

well-closed  doors, 
Let  me  be  wafted. 

"  Let  me  glide  noiselessly  forth ; 

With  the  key  of  softness  unlock  the  locks — with  a  whisper, 

Set  ope  the  doors  O  soul. 

"  Tenderly — be  not  impatient, 
(Strong  is  your  hold,  O  mortal  flesh, 
Strong  is  your  hold,  O  love.)" 

— ( The  Last  Invocation.} 

Then   she  exulted   in  a  poet  who,  while   thus 
welcoming  death,  could  produce  "  evangel-poems 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

of  comrades  and  of  love,"  by  which  a  "  new  and 
superb  friendship  "  was  made  possible  here.  She 
felt  with  him  the  "  Amplitude  of  Time,"  while  "  all, 
all  was  for  immortality."  She  rejoiced  in  the 
modern  man  of  which  he  sang — 

"  Of  life  immense  in  passion,  pulse  and  power, 
Cheerful,  for  freest  action  formed  under  the  laws  divine. 
The  Modern  Man  I  sing." 

For  the  first  time  she  truly  realized  the  meaning 
of  Democracy — of  individuality.  As  never  before, 
she  realized  the  glory  of  being  a  woman,  of  being 
a  mother. 

"  I  am  the  poet  of  the  woman  the  same  as  of  the  man. 
And  I  say  it  is  as  great  to  be  a  woman  as  to  be  a  man. 
And  I  say  there  is  nothing  greater  than  the  mother  of  men." 

— (Song  of  Myself. ) 

Even  for  the  prostitute  she  found  him  divinely 
tender  and  sympathetic,  as  in  The  City  Dead  House. 
I  doubt  if  that  poem  will  ever  be  more  appreci 
ated  by  any  human  being  than  by  this  woman 
who  could  write  that  inspired  letter  to  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti,  on  "  Jenny,"  when  his  first  volume  of 
poems  appeared  in  1870 — a  poem  which  moved 
her  to  anguish,  coming  upon  her  "after  she  had 
been  gazing  into  the  very  sanctuary  of  love  where 
woman  sat  divinely  enthroned." 

"You  touch  Jenny  gently — tenderly  even,"  she 
wrote,  "  and  I  feel  grateful  to  you  for  that ;  yet  I 

20 


Walt  Whitman 

think  even  you  are  hard  on  her ;  '  fond  of  guineas/ 
yes,  for  want  is  bitter,  and  it  always  dogs  her 
steps,  or,  at  any  rate,  lurks  just  round  the  corner. 
But  '  fond  of  kisses,'  no.  I  do  not  believe  there  is 
ever  more  any  sweetness  in  a  kiss  for  her,  only, 
with  whatever  semblance  it  may  be  given  or  taken 
— an  inward  loathing." 

Then  with  what  impassioned  eloquence  (who  can 
forget  it  ?)  she  goes  on  to  picture  the  heart,  and 
circumstances  leading  to  evil,  of  such  a  woman; 
from  the  first  blind  folly  to  the  afterwards,  with  no 
human  hand  to  help  her  up,  perhaps  pushed  down 
from  above  by  sisters,  grasped  from  below  by  ever 
more  and  more  brutalized  men,  her  poor  body 
dragged  and  dragged  through  the  mire,  even  then, 
she  says,  "  I  do  not  believe  its  vileness  stains 
through  to  her  very  inmost  self.  If  I  did,  the  pain 
would  be  more  than  I  could  bear ;  these  tears 
would  burn  my  cheeks  like  flame ;  I  should  hate 
my  womanhood — crave  annihilation  for  the  race. 
No  !  God  has  not  cursed  men  with  the  hideous 
power  to  wreck  her  soul  as  they  can  wreck  her 
body.  Poor  soul !  it  was  but  half  awake  and  alert 
to  begin  with — all  its  finest  instincts  yet  undeveloped, 
else  it  would  not  have  let  her  stand  for  a  moment 
within  the  atmosphere  of  danger,  but  would  have 
shed  round  her  a  subtle  atmosphere  banishing,  dis 
pelling  danger  !  Now,  crouched  away  back,  with 
face  averted  from  the  mad  riot  of  a  body  that 

21 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

carries,  but  is  scarce  owned  by  it,  numb  with 
misery,  and  the  utter  privation  of  all  healthful  ac 
tivity  and  sympathy,  conscious  of  itself  only 
through  sullen  despair,  it  waits  and  waits  till  there 
comes  at  last  the  mighty  rescuing  friend  Death — 
mysterious  New  Birth.  Then  it  finds  itself  once 
more  animating  a  stainless  body,  standing  not  indeed 
among  the  happy  sisters,  but  free  to  climb  towards 
them,  carrying  no  defilements  with  it."  No  "  Echo 
from  the  Past,"  she  was  grateful  to  say,  told  her 
this  was  so,  but  something  more  "  deeply  convinc 
ing,  more  illuminating  than  reason  or  the  evidence 
of  the  senses." 

With  this  glimpse  into  the  noble  Christian  soul 
of  Anne  Gilchrist,  it  becomes  interesting  to  see  how 
the  certain  poems  to  which  Rossetti  referred  were 
received  by  her. 

"  Who  so  well  able  to  bear  it,"  she  asks,  "as 
she  who,  having  been  a  happy  wife  and  mother,  has 
learned  to  accept  all  things  with  tenderness,  to  feel 
a  sacredness  in  all?"  Her  only  doubt  was  ex 
pressed  in  the  thought  that  perhaps  Whitman  had 
forgotten,  or  through  some  theory  in  his  head  had 
overridden,  the  truth  that  "  our  instincts  are  beau 
tiful  facts  of  nature  as  well  as  our  bodies,"  and  that 
we  have  a  "  strong  instinct  of  silence  about  some 
things."  When,  however,  she  had  read  the  "  beau 
tiful,  despised"  poems  of  Children  of  Adam  by  the 
"  light  that  glows  out  of  the  rest  of  the  volume,  by 

22 


Walt  Whitman 

the  light  of  a  clear,  strong  faith  in  God,  of  an  un- 
fathomably  deep  and  tender  love  for  humanity,  light 
shed  out  of  a  soul  that  is  possessed  of  itself/'  she 
wrote  Rossetti  he  argued  rightly  that  her  confidence 
would  not  be  betrayed  by  any  of  the  poems  in  the 
book.  None  of  them,  she  said,  troubled  her  even 
for  a  moment ;  because  she  saw  at  a  glance  that  it 
was  not,  as  men  had  supposed,  the  "  heights 
brought  down  to  the  depths,  but  the  depths  lifted 
up  level  with  the  sunlit  heights,  that  they  might 
become  clear  and  sunlit  too." 

In  this  poet,  she  saw  always  for  woman,  "  a 
veil  woven  out  of  her  own  soul — never  touched 
upon  even  with  a  rough  hand ;"  and  for  man  a 
"  daring,  fearless  pride  in  himself,  not  a  mock- 
modesty  woven  out  of  delusions."  "  Do  they  not 
see,"  she  continues,  "  that  this  fearless  pride,  this 
complete  acceptance  of  themselves,  is  needful  for 
her  pride,  her  justification  ?  What !  is  it  all  so 
ignoble,  so  base,  that  it  will  not  bear  the  honest 
light  of  speech  from  lips  so  gifted  with  the  divine 
power  to  use  words  ?  Then  what  hateful,  bitter 
humiliation  for  her  to  have  to  give  herself  up  to 
the  reality.  It  must  surely  be  man's  fault,  not 
God's,  that  she  has  to  say  to  herself,  Motherhood 
is  beautiful,  fatherhood  is  beautiful ;  but  the  dawn 
of  fatherhood  and  motherhood  is  not  beautiful. 
...  It  is  true  that  instinct  of  silence  I  spoke 
of  is  a  beautiful,  imperishable  part  of  nature 

23 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

too.  But  it  is  not  beautiful  when  it  means  an 
ignominious  shame  brooding  darkly.  It  was  needed 
that  this  silence,  this  evil  spell,  should  for  once  be 
broken,  and  the  daylight  let  in,  that  the  dark  cloud 
lying  under  might  be  scattered  to  the  winds.  It 
was  needed  that  one  who  could  here  indicate  for 
us  '  the  path  between  reality  and  the  soul '  should 
speak.  .  .  .  Now  silence  may  brood  again ;  but 
lovingly,  happily  as  protecting  what  is  beautiful, 
not  as  hiding  what  is  unbeautiful ;  consciously  en 
folding  a  sweet  and  sacred  mystery — august  even 
as  the  mystery  of  Death,  the  dawn  as  the  setting ; 
kindred  grandeurs  which  to  eye's  that  are  opened 
shed  a  hallowing  beauty  on  all  that  surrounds  and 
preludes  them.  He  who  can  look  with  fearless 
ness  at  the  beauty  of  Death — 

" '  O  vast  and  well-veiled  Death  ! 

O  the  beautiful  touch  of  Death,  soothing  and  benumbing,' 

— may  well  dare  to  teach  us  to  look  with  fearless, 
untroubled  eyes  at  the  perfect  beauty  of  Love  in 
all  its  appointed  realities.  Now  none  need  turn 
away  their  thoughts  with  pain  or  shame ;  though 
only  lovers  and  poets  may  say  what  they  will — the 
lover  to  his  own,  the  poet  to  all,  because  all  are  in 
a  sense  his  own." 

But  where  shall  we  stop  in  this  splendid  rush  of 
thought  of  this  high-minded,  pure-hearted  woman  ? 
for  only  such  could  so  express  herself  in  this  dayr 

24 


Walt  Whitman 

when  so  much  of  thought  and  feeling  is  tinged 
with  the  false  and  shallow  teaching  of  the  ages. 

May  I  be  allowed  right  here  to  tell  of  one  of  the 
finest  compliments  ever  paid  a  woman  ?  It  was 
during  a  conversation  with  Walt  Whitman  in  his 
Camden  home  on  this  very  subject — the  advisability 
of  giving  to  the  public  eye  things  meant  for  the 
silences.  After  a  somewhat  lengthy  expression  of 
my  opinion,  when  the  matter  was  considered  one 
of  taste  rather  than  of  morals,  he  looked  at  me 
earnestly  as  he  extended  his  hand,  and  said  in  that 
wondrously  sweet  voice  of  his,  "  I  want  to  thank 
you,  as  a  woman,  for  the  capacity  of  understanding 
me  ;"  then,  after  a  moment's  pause,  he  added  some 
what  meditatively,  "  Perhaps  only  the  combination 
of  the  pure  heart  and  the  broad  mind  makes  this 
possible." 

How  many  times  this  thought  has  come  to  me, 
on  seeing  women's  minds  "so  stuck"  to  a  few 
phrases  in  his  work  that  they  could  not  soar  on  the 
wings  of  his  poetry  and  say — 

"  Over  the  mountain-growths,  disease  and  sorrow, 
An  uncaught  bird  is  ever  hovering,  hovering, 
High  in  the  purer,  happier  air. 

"  From  imperfection's  murkiest  cloud 
Darts  always  forth  one  ray  of  perfect  light, 
One  flash  of  heaven's  glory. 

"  To  fashions,  customs,  discord, 
To  the  mad  Babel-din,  the  deafening  orgies, 
25 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

Soothing  each  lull  a  strain  is  heard,  just  heard, 
From  some  far  shore  the  final  chorus  sounding. 

"  O  the  blest  eyes,  the  happy  hearts 

That  see,  that  know  the  guiding  thread  so  fine 

Along  the  mighty  labyrinth." 

— (Song  of  the  Universal.} 


Or 


"  In  this  broad  earth  of  ours, 
Amid  the  measureless  grossness  and  the  slag, 
Enclosed  and  safe  within  its  central  heart, 
Nestles  the  seed  perfection." 

— ( Song  of  the  Universal. ) 

This  all-embracing  truth  of  the  poet,  including 
within  its  scope  every  created  thing,  and  with 
deepest  significance  every  part,  faculty,  attitude, 
healthful  impulse,  mind  and  body  of  a  man  (each 
and  all  facing  towards  and  related  to  the  Infinite  on 
every  side),  was  what  so  impressed  Anne  Gilchrist. 
She  was  firmly  convinced  that  a  perfectly  fearless, 
candid,  ennobling  treatment  of  the  life  of  the  body, 
so  inextricably  intertwined  with,  so  potent  in  its 
influence  on  the  life  of  the  soul,  would  "  prove  of 
inestimable  value  to  all  earnest  aspiring  natures, 
impatient  of  the  folly  of  the  long-prevalent  belief 
that  it  is  because  of  the  greatness  of  the  spirit  that 
it  has  learned  to  despise  the  body,  and  to  ignore  its 
influence."  She  felt  that  the  spirit  must  "  lovingly 
embrace  the  body,  as  the  roots  of  a  tree  embrace  the 
ground,  drawing  therein  rich  nourishment,  warmth, 

26 


Walt  Whitman 

impulse."  The  great  tide  of  healthful  life  that 
carries  all  before  it  must  surge  through  the  whole 
man,  not  beat  to  and  fro  in  one  corner  of  his  brain. 
"  O  the  life  of  my  senses  and  flesh,  transcending 
my  senses  and  flesh  !"  She  had  no  fear  that  the 
poet's  utterances,  however  harmless  in  themselves, 
would  prove  harmful  by  falling  into  the  hands  of 
those  for  whom  they  were  manifestly  unsuitable  ; 
for  she  believed  that  "innocence  was  folded  round 
with  such  thick  folds  of  ignorance  till  the  right 
way  and  time  for  it  to  accept  knowledge  that  what 
was  unsuitable  was  also  unintelligible."  She  be 
came  more  and  more  convinced  that  the  harm 
arose  from  the  dark  shadow  cast  on  the  white  page 
from  without — the  misconstruction  of  foolish  people, 
traitors  to  themselves,  poorly  comprehending  the 
grandeur  or  beauty  of  their  own  natures.  Remove 
this  shadow,  she  said,  trust  Nature  to  do  her  own 
teaching  to  individual  consciousness,  and  all  would 
learn,  through  the  poet,  the  divinity  of  the  temple 
of  the  spirit,  the  glories  possible  to  it,  which, 
through  false  teachings,  had  been  denied.  This 
thought  she  knew  was  not  now  realized.  But  she 
was  sure  that  when  the  "  most  vital  and  practical 
of  facts  that  there  was  no  particle  of  matter  in  the 
universe  but  had  reference  to  soul "  was  seen  to  be 
true,  we  should  understand  all,  love  all,  and  fear 
nothing.  Then,  she  persuaded  herself,  Walt 
Whitman's  poems  would  be  "  dear  to  the  hearts 

27 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

of  many  women,  and  that  the  husbands  of  those 
women  would  be  the  happiest  of  husbands."  She 
felt  a  persuasion,  the  "strength  and  persistency" 
of  which  astonished  her,  that  it  was  possible  for 
a  woman  so  to  treat  the  difficult  subject  as  to  com 
mand  respect,  though  it  might  not  be  possible  at 
present  to  win  more  than  a  dozen  persons  in  the 
world  to  the  truest  conception.  A  point  was 
gained,  however,  if  hearts  and  minds  would  no 
longer  look  at  the  poet  through  the  distorting 
medium  bred  by  an  utter  misconception.  She  be 
lieved  that  some  of  his  poems  would  never  be 
rightly  apprehended  by  men  until  some  woman 
had  the  courage  to  speak.  "  His  utterances,"  she 
wrote,  "  needed  corroboration,  acceptance  from  a 
woman  (as  closely  concerned  as  man  in  this  ques 
tion  and  approaching  it  from  entirely  distinct 
standing-ground)  before  it  could  be  accepted  by 
men." 

Her  conviction  that  these  poems  had  in  them 
the  "  seeds  of  such  immeasurably  grand  results  for 
the  world"  that  any  delay  in  the  successful  plant 
ing  of  them  was  grievous ;  the  pain  and  indignation 
she  felt  at  the  thought  of  how  that  "  great  name 
had  been  saluted  chiefly  with  injurious  epithets 
and  hateful  imputations ;"  the  belief  that  "  none 
but  a  woman  could  be  the  decisive  judge  of  the 
question  involved  in  these  attacks  (she  being  sup 
plied  with  finer,  subtler  tests) ;"  the  clear,  sweet 

28 


Walt  Whitman 

consciousness  that  men  and  women  might  "trust 
her  to  the  uttermost  in  this,  even  if  they  could  not 
at  present  see  the  matter  at  all  as  she  did ;"  all  these 
things  made  her  absolutely  fearless  in  deciding  to 
accept  Mr.  Rossetti's  proposal  to  have  her  letters 
to  him  on  the  subject  arranged  for  the  public  eye. 
He  had  been  deeply  impressed  with  her  thought, 
considering  it  the  "fullest,  farthest-reaching  and 
most  eloquent  appreciation  of  Whitman"  which 
had  then  appeared.  He  deemed  it  all  the  more 
valuable  because  the  expression  of  what  a  woman 
saw  in  the  poet,  especially  such  a  woman,  whom  to 
know  was  "  to  respect  and  esteem  in  every  relation, 
whether  of  character,  intellect  or  culture."  He 
wrote  a  prelude  in  accordance  with  her  request,  for 
she  confessed  she  never  could  have  written  so 
frankly  but  for  the  implicit  faith  that  he  would  un 
derstand  her  aright.  She  fully  realized  her  posi 
tion  in  advocating  a  poet  which  the  world  had  not 
yet  understood.  "  I  often  feel,"  she  wrote,  "  as  if 
my  enterprise  was  very  like  Lady  Godiva's — as  if 
hers,  indeed,  were  typical  of  mine.  For  she  slipped 
the  veil  from  woman's  body  for  a  good  cause,  and 
I  from  a  woman's  soul  for  a  good  cause.  And  no 
man  has  ever  dared  to  find  any  fault  with  her." 

On  the  work  being  received  in  America,  the 
friends  of  Walt  Whitman  were  "  infinitely  indebted, 
beyond  words,  for  so  broad  and  luminous  an  inter 
pretation  of  his  pages."  Mr.  Wm.  D.  O'Connor, 

29 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

upon  receiving  it,  wrote,  "  The  lady's  contribution 
is  simply  superb.  Unquestionably  the  finest  and 
fullest  appreciation  yet  uttered."  Later  he  wrote, 
"Our  Bird  of  Paradise  has  found  a  perch  in  the 
May  number  of  the  Radical"  (1870.)  And  to 
day,  "  An  Englishwoman's  estimate  of  Walt  Whit 
man"  is  one  of  the  finest  contributions  to  Whitman 
literature. 

Walt  Whitman  himself  was  deeply  touched  with 
this  "  burst  of  sunlight  over  the  sea."  "  Nothing," 
he  wrote  Wm.  M.  Rossetti,  after  having  received 
word  direct  from  Mrs.  Gilchrist,  "nothing  in  my 
life,  or  my  literary  fortunes,  has  brought  me  more 
comfort  and  support  every  way — nothing  has  more 
spiritually  soothed  me — than  the  warm  appreci 
ation  of  friendship  of  that  true,  full-grown  woman 
(I  still  use  the  broad,  grand  old  Saxon  word,  our 
highest  need)."  To  his  dying  day  the  poet  never 
forgot  this  ray  of  hope  in  his  lonely,  self-made 
way. 

The  effect  of  Anne  Gilchrist's  study  of  Walt 
Whitman  was  already  being  seen  in  her  judgment 
of  other  poets.  Mr.  Rossetti's  Memoir  of  Shelley 
led  her  to  restudy  Shelley.  His  criticism  of  Mr. 
Swinburne  caused  an  animated  discussion  between 
the  two  friends  of  that  poet's  work.  While  his 
Ballads  of  Burdens  interested  Rossetti,  as  Ecclesi- 
astes  would,  she  felt  it  to  be  the  "trite,  dreary, 
sickly  conceptions  of  life  that  have  already  been 

30 


Walt  Whitman 

uttered  ad  nauseam;'  though,  she  had  to  confess, 
"  never  so  musically  uttered  before."  Her  nature 
was  panting  for  healthier  life,  the  free,  fresh,  grow 
ing  life  of  humanity.  The  emotion  of  Swinburne 
seemed  to  her  the  "  effluence  of  a  heated  brain,  not 
of  a  strong,  beating  heart." 

"  Was  there  ever  before  a  gifted  man  so  barren 
of  great  thoughts  or  deep  feelings?"  she  asked 
Rossetti.  But  she  said  she  could  go  any  length 
with  him  in  admiration  of  Victor  Hugo,  "  cet  heros 
au  doux  sourire,"  as  she  always  thought  of  him. 

In  these  days  in  her  Brookbank  home,  passed  in 
a  life  of  "  earnest,  warm  and  unfrittered  simplicity," 
Anne  Gilchrist  held  an  "  even  and  sensitive  balance 
between  the  claims  of  family  affection  and  those 
of  intellectual  activity."  She  was  ''genial,  coura 
geous,  and  steady  in  all  her  likings  and  habits,"  with 
a  manner,  says  her  son,  "  remarkably  cordial  with 
out  gushingness."  She  had  an  eminently  speaking 
face,  the  full,  dark,  liquid  eyes,  extremely  vivacious, 
being  the  marked  feature.  Her  "  ready  quick- 
thoughted  kindness  "  was  what  George  Eliot  espe 
cially  noted  in  the  correspondence  which  led  to  the 
renting  of* Brookbank  to  her  and  Mr.  Lewis  for 
the  summer  of  1871.  This  little  "  queer  cottage  " 
where,  as  George  Eliot  wrote  Anne,  "  the  exquisite 
stillness  in  the  sunshine,  and  a  sense  of  distance 
from  London  hurry  which  encourages  the  growth 
of  patience,"  were  such  a  joy  to  her,  became  so 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

dear  to  them  both  that  they  "  were  loth  to  leave  " 
when  the  lease  of  a  few  months  was  up.  The 
shelves  were  so  ladened  with  books  that  they  re 
gretted  having  brought  any  of  their  own.  They 
found  the  reading  of  the  Life  of  Blake  especially 
interesting  'midst  the  cloud  of  Blake  drawings  and 
engravings  which  adorned  the  walls.  They  were 
as  pleased  with  these  as  Tennyson  had  been.  In 
the  long  drawing-room  with  its  antique  furniture,  the 
red  rose  and  honeysuckle  peeping  in  through  the 
bow- window,  George  Eliot  wrote  day  after  day  the 
second  part  of  Middlemarch.  The  old  prints  on 
the  walls,  "charming  children  of  Sir  Joshua,  and 
large-hatted  ladies  of  his  and  Romney,"  were  her 
"dumb  companions."  She  declared  if  ever  she 
stole  anything,  it  would  be  the  two  little  Sir  Joshuas 
over  the  drawing-room  mantel-piece,  Master  Lord 
Burghersh,  and  little  Miss  Theopila  Gwatkin.  All 
this  surrounding  may  have  suggested  the  house  of 
Mrs.  Meyrick  in  Daniel  Deronda,  where  the  "  nar 
row  spaces  of  wall  held  a  world-history  in  scenes 
and  heads." 

Work  went  on  smoothly  to  both  George  Eliot 
and  Mr.  Lewes,  away  from  all  friendly  interrup 
tions.  Their  habits  here,  as  in  London,  were  of 
clock-work  regularity.  "  We  are  like  two  secluded 
owls,"  she  wrote  a  friend,  "wise  with  unfashionable 
wisdom,  and  knowing  nothing  of  pictures  and 
French  plays.  I  read  aloud — almost  all  the  even- 

32 


Walt  Whitman 

ing — books  of  German  science  and  other  gravities." 
To  another  friend  she  wrote  of  the  beauty  of  the 
region,  "  perpetual  undulation  of  heath  and  copse, 
clear  views  of  hurrying  water  with  here  and  there 
a  grand  pine  wood,  steep,  wood-clothed  promon 
tories  and  gleaming  pools."  In  this  atmosphere 
she  read  our  Lowell's  My  Study  Windows.  "  If 
you  want  delightful  reading,"  she  declared,  "  read 
in  that  the  essays  called  '  My  Garden  Acquaint 
ances/  and  'Winter.''  Occasionally  they  went 
the  uphill  road  to  see  Tennyson,  who,  from  his 
house  about  three  miles  from  Shottermill,  had 
found  them  out.  Miss  Blind,  in  her  biography  of 
George  Eliot,  tells  how,  on  one  of  these  visits,  after 
a  warm  argument  on  Evolution  and  kindred 
thought  the  poet  called  to  her,  as  she  wended  her 
way  down  the  hill  after  the  farewell,  "  Well,  good 
bye,  you  and  your  molecules  !"  Looking  back, 
she  replied  in  her  low,  deep  voice,  "  I  am  quite  con 
tent  with  my  molecules  !"  When  they  left  the  little 
cottage,  a  most  cordial  invitation  was  extended  to 
Mrs.Gilchrist  to  come  to  their  Sunday  "At  Homes." 
But  the  way  never  opened  for  a  personal  meeting. 
George  Eliot,  however,  never  forgot  Shottermill, 
where,  as  she  wrote  Anne,  who  had  used  the 
phrase,  she  had  a  "  sense  of  standing  on  a  round 
world,"  which  was  "precisely  what  she  most  cared 
for  amongst  out-of-door  delights." 

Five   years  later,  in   1876,  when  she   and  Mr. 
3  33 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

Lewes  bought  a  place  not  far  off,  The  Heights,  at 
Witley,  Surrey  (which  became  a  favorite  country 
home),  they  had  the  same  kind  of  beautiful  open 
scenery.  There  Mr.  Lewes  sper!:  his  last  summer 
on  earth,  and  there  George  Eliot  came  with  her 
husband,  Mr.  Cross,  after  their  tour  in  Italy. 

It  is  possible  that  Anne  Gilchrist' s  love  for  the 
work  of  Walt  Whitman  influenced  George  Eliot  to 
a  further  study  of  him.  She  may  have  found 
among  Anne's  books  at  Brookbank  the  Radical 
containing  her  estimate  of  him,  as  it  was  published 
only  the  year  before.  However  that  may  be,  we 
do  know  that  George  Eliot  came  to  change  her 
opinion  that  Whitman  had  nothing  "  spiritually 
needful  for  her,"  to  a  confession  that  he  did  con 
tain  what  was  good  for  her  soul." 

The  summer  that  Brookbank  was  occupied  by 
the  Lewes',  Anne  was  with  her  aged  mother  at  the 
ancestral  home  at  Earls  Colne,  where  annual  visits 
were  always  paid.  There,  in  the  old-fashioned 
flower-bordered  garden,  or  in  some  pet  field,  she 
roamed,  listened  to  the  singing  of  the  birds,  and 
ever  had  "  happy  thoughts  of  her  children  and 
their  future  together."  She  read  the  Idylls  of  the 
King  and  The  Holy  Grail  which  the  Tennysons 
sent  her.  But,  above  all,  she  dwelt  upon  "  Walt 
Whitman  and  his  divine  poems."  They  not  only 
made  Nature  dearer  to  her,  but  deepened  her  feel 
ing  for  human  nature.  She  came  to  realize  more 

34 


Walt  Whitman 

what  comradeship  meant.  These  poems,  associated 
as  they  were  with  William  Michael  Rossetti,  made 
his  friendship  a  constant  delight — a  friendship 
"  never  clouded  by  p.  breath  of  coldness  or  dissat 
isfaction."  When  settled  the  following  winter  in 
her  native  London*  for  the  better  education  of  her 
children,  it  was  a  pleasure  to  congratulate  him 
upon  his  approaching  marriage  with  Miss  Lucy 
Madox  Brown  ;  for  she  was  still  an  earnest  be 
liever  in  the  "  enlarged,  deepened,  completed  life 
only  to  be  attained  through  a  happy  marriage." 
On  the  death  of  the  wife  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti, 
she  "sighed  with  happiness,"  as  she  wrote  him, 
"  to  realize  that  the  earth  did  bear  on  its  bosom 
such  sweet  life  for  two  human  creatures."  After 
trying  to  console  him  with  the  thought  that  it  was 
only  a  pause  in  that  blended  life,  only  one  of  the 
two  hidden  for  a  few  yards  by  a  bend  of  the  road," 
she  cried  out,  "  But  how  could  God  spare  the  sight 
of  such  happiness  out  of  His  universe  ?" 

A  visit  to  America  had  been  in  Anne  Gilchrist's 
mind  for  some  time.  At  last,  in  the  Centennial 
year  (1876),  she  decided  to  go  there  with  her  son, 
Herbert,  then  about  twenty  years  of  age,  and  her 
daughters  "Bee"  and  "Giddy,"  as  Walt  Whit 
man  calls  them  in  a  letter.  Before  sailing  in  August, 
she  was  rejoiced  to  see  a  goodly  list  of  names  of 

*  Anne  Gilchrist  was  born  at  7  Gower  street,  London,  February 
25,  1828,  the  same  year  as  Dante  G.  Rossetti. 

35 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

persons  who,  through  her  and  Mr.  Rossetti's  in 
strumentality,  had  agreed  to  buy  a  copy  of  Walt 
Whitman's  Centennial  edition  of  Leaves  of  Grass. 
Inspired  by  the  eloquent  letter  of  Robert  Buchanan 
following  a  review  in  the  Daily  News,  Tennyson 
had  sent  the  poet  five  pounds.    Although  Buchanan 
intimated  to  Whitman  that  no  books  were  expected 
in  return,  he  preferred  to  send  him  his  new  edition 
of  two  volumes,  which  he  did.     "  I  am  not  at  all 
sure/'  he  had  already  written  Rossetti,  "  that  Alfred 
Tennyson  sees  my  poems,  but  I  do  his  ;  and  strongly, 
(and  there,  perhaps,  I  have  the  advantage  of  him) ; 
but  I  think  he  sees  me ;  and  nothing  could  have 
evidenced  more  courtesy  and   manliness  and  hos 
pitality  than  his  letters  to  me  have  shown  for  five 
years."     This    kind,   helpful    interest    of    English 
friends  was  never   forgotten   by  Walt   Whitman. 
"Forevermore  I  shall  love  old  England,"  he  said 
to  Sidney  Morse  when  he  was  at  his  home  sculp 
turing  a  bust  of  him.     "It  all   comes    over   me 
now,  and  always  does  when  I  think  of  it,  like  a 
great  succouring  love.     You  should  have  seen  the 
tears,  Sidney,  or  you  shouldn't.    With  no  discount 
ing  of  friends  at  home,  I  must  say  that  English 
business  stands  apart  in  my  thought  from  all  else — 
the  money  and  the  friendliness  of  it  all." 

Upon  arriving  in  Philadelphia,  Anne  was  favor 
ably  impressed  with  the  city,  with  its  "  long  straight 
streets  at  right  angles  to  each  other,  long  and 

36 


Walt  Whitman 

broad  enough  to  look  as  if  they  must  lead  some 
where  very  pleasant."  It  was  "more  picturesque 
and  foreign-looking"  than  she  expected.  Its  free 
dom  from  smoke  and  soot  pleased  her.  Friends 
were  soon  made.  John  Burroughs  called  a  few 
days  after  her  arrival,  and  "  much  she  liked  him." 
But  the  chief  joy  was  meeting  Walt  Whitman,  who, 
she  wrote  Rossetti,  "  fully  realized  the  ideal  she  had 
formed  from  his  poems,"  and  brought  such  an 
"  atmosphere  of  cordiality  with  him  as  is  indescrib 
able."  This  atmosphere  of  cordiality  was  what  par 
ticularly  impressed  me  in  visiting  the  poet  in  his 
Camden  home.  Although  confined  to  his  room, 
ill-health  did  not  quench  the  spirit  of  love  which 
animated  his  face  and  guided  his  action — the  love 
of  comradeship  which  engendered  a  personal  inter 
est  and  a  loyal  affection.  It  was  at  the  time  when 
my  little  gratuitous  work  in  his  behalf,  Gems 
from  Walt  Whitman,  was  being  published  by 
David  McKay  (1889).  He  showed  interest  in 
every  detail,  even  providing  the  biographical  facts 
for  it.  He  had  already  sent  me  two  most  apprecia 
tive  letters  for  the  article  on  his  life  among  the 
soldiers  included  in  the  book,  when  it  appeared  in 
the  New  York  Critic. 

Those  who  have  had  the  friendship  of  Walt 
Whitman  know  how  much  he  meant  when  he  said, 
"  Thank  you  deeply."  This  capacity  for  grateful 
affection  Anne  Gilchrist  fully  appreciated ;  and  the 

37 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

poet  was  only  too  happy  for  the  opportunity  now 
given  for  personal  expression.  Day  after  day 
he  came  to  her  boarding-place  in  Philadelphia, 
(1929  North  2 2d  street.)  Every  evening  but  Sun 
day  he  was  likely  to  be  at  her  right  hand  in  the 
circle  gathered  around  her  tea-table.  His  white 
hair  and  beard  gave  him  a  look  of  age  "  curiously 
contradicted  by  his  face,"  she  wrote  Rossetti, 
"  which  has  not  only  the  ruddy  freshness,  but  the 
full-rounded  contour  of  youth,  nowhere  drawn  or 
wrinkled  or  sunk — a  face  indicative  of  serenity  and 
goodness."  As  a  result  of  a  paralytic  stroke,  he 
inclined  "to  drag  rather  than  lift"  the  left  leg. 
She  was  always  impressed  with  his  striking  per 
sonality.  One  evening,  when  Joaquin  Miller  was 
a  guest  at  the  tea-table,  he  came  in  a  little  late. 
"Ah !"  exclaimed  Miller,  as  he  arose  to  greet  him, 
"  He  looks  like  a  god  to-night !" 

In  referring  to  those  days,  Joaquin  Miller  wrote 
me  from  his  California  home  in  December,  1896, 
that  Mrs.  Gilchrist  "  would  not  be  forgotten — Walt 
was  ever  safe  in  her  hands."  In  those  evenings, 
rich  in  conversation  and  friendly  greetings,  the 
good  gray  poet  rarely  read  his  own  poems.  He 
inclined  more  to  discuss  the  work  and  personality 
of  others.  Years  afterward  Grace,  or  "Giddy"  as 
they  then  called  her,  added  her  public  impressions, 
to  those  of  her  brother  Herbert,  of  the  two  years 
her  family  spent  in  the  Quaker  City  of  Philadelphia. 

38 


Walt  Whitman 

She  recalled  the  rich  personality  of  Whitman,  when, 
after  supper,  they  would  all  take  their  chairs  out 
"  American  fashion,  beside  the  stoop — that  is  on  the 
pavement  below  the  front  steps  of  the  house  " — 
and  have  the  friendly  evening  together.  The  poet, 
sitting  in  a  large  bamboo  rocking-chair,  would 
declaim  scenes  from  Tennyson,  Shakespeare  and 
others,  but  would  rarely  recite  anything  of  his  own. 
She  recalled  "The  Mystic  Trumpeter"  as  one  he 
oftenest  recited,  that  having  been  a  favorite  one  for 
his  recital  to  the  soldiers  in  the  hospitals.  She 
referred  to  his  confession  that  he  could  not  find 
the  satisfaction  in  Shakespeare's  heroines  that  some 
did.  "  I  think,"  he  said,  "it  is  partly  owing  to  the 
fact  that  women  never  actually  acted  in  Shakes 
peare's  time ;  boys  were  dressed  up,  and  Shakes 
peare  must  have  had  those  in  mind."  He  declared 
he  felt  like  comparing  his  plays  to  "  large,  rich, 
splendid  tapestry,  like  Raphael's  historical  cartoons, 
where  everything  is  broad  and  colossal.  Royal 
kings  and  queens  did  not  really  talk  like  that,  but 
ought  to  if  they  did  not ;  it  is  redeemed  in  that  way. 
Now  you  can't  say  that  of  Nature — a  tree  is  what 
it  is,  and  you  can't  make  it  out  better  than  it  is." 
At  another  time  he  said  he  didn't  care  for  "  Straw 
berry  teas"  and  the  like.  He  enjoyed  "being 
with  those  he  loved,  and  was  never  tired  of  that." 
The  son  Herbert,  in  his  biography,  recalls  interest 
ing  incidents  of  these  friendly  gatherings  at  the 

39 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

boarding-place  of  his  mother  in  Philadelphia.  At 
one  time  she  persuaded  him  to  read  Romola,  know 
ing  that  George  Eliot  was  not  a  favorite  of  his. 
The  result,  however,  was  not  satisfactory.  The 
book  seemed  to  him  more  "  like  a  mosaic,  each  bit 
good,"  but  he  wanted  a  "  thread,  something  to 
carry  him  on  in  a  novel."  He  thought  Romola 
was  "  statuesque ;  her  author  always  poses  her 
before  the  reader  is  allowed  to  see  her,  as  a  photog 
rapher  does — 'your  chin  a  little  higher,  please  !' ' 
The  story  was  melancholy  to  him.  "  Ah !"  he 
exclaimed,  "  when  the  Greeks  treated  of  tragedy, 
how  differently  it  was  done.  They  did  it  in  a  lofty 
way,  so  that  there  seemed  to  be  fulfillment  in  defeat ; 
a  tragedy  as  treated  by  the  ancients  inspires — fills 
one  with  hope."  He  once  said  that  Walter  Scott 
was  ever  a  great  favorite  with  him,  especially  his 
Heart  of  Mid-Lothian.  His  work  breathed  more  of 
the  open  air  than  of  the  workshop.  His  humanity 
refreshed  him.  At  another  time,  referring  to  Burns, 
he  spoke  of  his  large  humanity.  "  Convivial  Burns!" 
he  exclaimed,  "  fond  of  comrades,  of  talking  and 
joking ;  I  think  that  I,  nay,  that  we,  should  all 
have  liked  him.  What  a  tragedy  his  life  was,  poor 
fellow  !"  Walt  always  spoke  of  George  Sand's 
work  with  interest,  especially  Consuelo.  His  knowl 
edge  of  music  and  the  drama  made  his  discussion 
on  those  subjects  interesting,  for  Mrs.  Gilchrist  was 
musical  by  nature  and  education.  When  they  were 

40 


Walt  Whitman 

in  a  box  seeing  Joaquin  Miller's  new  play,  The 
Danites,  she  noticed  that  though  now  and  then  he 
nodded  approval,  he  did  it  with  the  reserve  of  an 
old  playgoer  who  had  seen  the  great  artists. 

But  it  was  as  a  democrat  she  saw  the  richest 
life  in  him — his  love  for  the  individual  everywhere — 
for  the  person  itself,  aside  from  the  profession. 

"  I  am  the  bard  of  personality,"  he  said,  much 
to  her  joy,  for  in  that  she  saw  soul-recognition  for 
the  humblest.  Speaking  of  Tennyson  one  evening, 
he  said  it  was  a  pity  for  such  a  personality  as  his 
not  to  invest  more  of  his  capital  in  comradeship. 
"  Literary  men  and  artists  seem  to  shrink  from 
companionship ;  to  me  it  is  exhilarating ;  affects  me 
in  the  same  way  that  the  light  or  storm  does."  He 
said  that  though  he  liked  Thoreau,  what  he  once 
said  to  him,  when  walking  in  his  favorite  Brooklyn, 
jarred  on  him.  "  What  is  there  in  people  ?  Pshaw  ! 
what  do  you  (a  man  who  sees  as  well  as  anybody) 
see  in  all  this  cheating,  political  corruption?"  He 
felt  that  it  was  not  so  much  a  love  of  woods, 
streams  and  hills  that  made  Thoreau  live  in  the 
country,  as  a  morbid  dislike  of  humanity.  He 
even  felt  a  little  vexed,  at  times,  that  the  good 
William  (Shakespeare)  should  have  failed  to  see 
anything  in  the  common  people  ;  for,  unless  it  be 
the  faithful  servant  in  As  You  Like  It,  there  was  not 
a  single  character  of  the  people  in  his  plays  who 
was  not  a  booby  (Jack  Cade,  Bottom) — and  no 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

doubt  they  were — only  it  showed  him  how  entirely 
Shakespeare  was  absorbed  in  the  feudalism  of  his 
time.  Walt  often  spoke  of  his  own  experiences 
with  those  who  were  ignorant  of  him  as  a  writer 
or  poet.  Poets  and  artists  were  such  "  far-off 
things"  to  many  of  them,  that  he  declared  he 
found  real  entertainment  in  their  opinions,  and  even 
in  their  astonishment  that  one  such  could  come 
among  them  talking  freely.  He  enjoyed  giving  his 
reminiscences  of  the  war  to  pilot-men,  engineers, 
car-drivers,  etc.  He  noted  all  the  criticisms,  refer 
ring  one  time  to  a  piece  of  advice  he  received  from 
an  old  fellow  who,  after  having  read  Leaves  of 
Grass,  asked,  very  earnestly,  why  he  didn't  study 
Addison.  "  You  ought  to  read  Addison's  works," 
he  concluded  gravely. 

When  Edward  Carpenter  came  to  America, 
mainly  to  see  the  "good,  gray  poet,"  Walt  took 
him  to  call  on  Anne.  Her  predilection  to  science, 
leading  her  mind  to  the  roots  of  things,  made  her 
an  interesting  companion.  One  can  easily  imagine 
these  three  large  natures  talking  together  of  the 
new  forms  of  poetry,  of  democracy,  and  other  sub 
jects.  Anne,  according  to  her  son,  was  a  "  good 
and  rather  copious  talker,  serious  and  amusing  as 
well,"  and  had  a  most  musical  voice.  Her  large, 
loving  nature  and  fine  sympathy  made  her  liberal 
and  charitable.  Walt  called  her  his  "  noblest 
woman  friend"  as  well  as  "science-friend."  (Going 

42 


Walt  Whitman 

Somewhere?)  Her  nobility  of  soul  was  the  secret 
of  this  great  capacity  for  friendship  with  great 
minds.  She  could  not  stoop  to  the  vulgar  or  to 
the  superficial.  "  I  never  knew  a  woman,"  said 
Rossetti,  "  who,  while  maintaining  a  decorous  social 
position,  from  which  she  never  deviated  or  dero 
gated  by  a  hair's  breath,  showed  less  propensity 
towards  any  of  those  social  distinctions  which  are 
essentially  factitious  and  arbitrary."  And  years 
afterward,  in  1897,  referring  to  her  in  a  letter  to  me, 
he  said  he  always  thought  of  her  with  "  affection 
and  respect." 

Her  friend,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Robbins  Pennell,  re 
ferred  to  this  splendid  capacity  for  friendship  in 
writing  of  her  in  the  New  York  Critic.  She  says 
her  letters  to  her  friends  were  "more  full  of  thought 
and  more  finished  in  style  than  many  of  the  articles 
published  in  papers  and  reviews."  Some  of  her 
most  "  beautiful,  characteristic,  and  copious  "  letters 
were,  according  to  the  Athenaum,  written  to  her 
great  American  friend,  Walt  Whitman.  These  the 
poet  kept  as  sacred  to  his  dying  day.  On  being 
appealed  to  by  Herbert  Gilchrist  to  give  them,  or 
parts  of  them,  for  publication  in  the  biography  of 
his  mother,  he  said  he  could  not  furnish  any  good 
reason,  but  he  felt  to  keep  these  utterances  exclu 
sively  to  himself. 

While  in  America,  Mrs.  Gilchrist's  pen  was  not 
idle.  Besides  prose  translations  from  Victor  Hugo's 

43 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

La  Legende  des  Siecles,  letters,  etc.,  she  wrote  an 
occasional  article  or  essay.  One  written  at  North 
ampton,  Massachusetts  (where  she  went  after  her 
two  years'  stay  in  Philadelphia),  under  the  title 
"Three  Glimpses  of  a  New  England  Village," 
eventually  appeared  in  Blackwood's  Magazine. 
(November,  1884.)  In  this  she  pleasantly  compared 
the  New  England  valley  to  the  English  weald  of 
Sussex,  acknowledging  its  advantage  of  a  broad  and 
beautiful  river  winding  through  it  (the  Connecticut), 
while  its  hills  were  about  two  hundred  feet  higher. 
By  signs  in  the  Amherst  Museum,  she  judged  that 
New  England  was  old  compared  to  Old  England, 
since  for  ages  one  had  dry  land,  while  the  other 
had  a  waste  of  waters.  She  not  only  pictured  the 
natural  beauties  of  the  region,  but  its  history,  in 
cluding  the  long-supposed  "  miraculous  deliver 
ance  "  in  old  Hatfield,  of  which  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
Cooper,  Miss  Sedgwick  and  Hawthorne  had  treated. 
She  .was  in  love,  like  all  of  us,  with  Hatfield's  wide 
street  with  its  double  avenue  of  superb  elms,  look 
ing  to  her  more  like  the  entrance  to  a  fine  park  than 
a  village  street.  Socially,  the  town  reminded  her 
of  Cranford,  but  "  Cranford  with  a  difference." 
There  was  the  same  preponderance  of  maiden  ladies 
and  widows;  the  same  tea-parties  with  a  "solitary 
beau  in  the  centre  like  the  one  white  flower  in  the 
middle  of  a  nosegay ;"  the  same  "  modest  good 
ness,  kindliness,  refinement,  making  the  best  of 

44 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 


Walt  Whitman 

limited  means  and  of  restricted  interests."  But  she 
made  haste  to  say  the  heroines  did  not  wait  for  the 
"  inevitable,  faithful,  long-absent,  mysteriously-re- 
turriing-at-the-right-moment-love  to  redeem  their 
lives  from  triviality,  and  renew  their  faded  bloom  ;" 
they  lived  the  modern  life — Miss  Smith  founded  a 
college,  and  Miss  Harriet  Rogers  opened  the  way 
for  the  dumb  to  speak.  She  came  to  see  that  the 
great  forces  which  were  building  up  a  people's  life 
worked  silently  beneath  the  surface ;  that  in  spite 
of  "  newspapers,  telegrams,  travellers,  a  common 
language  and  ancestry,"  misconceptions  between 
America  and  her  own  country  abounded.  Only, 
she  believed,  by  the  help  of  vital  literature  could 
souls  of  nations  come  at  last  to  speak  to  one  an 
other. 

Through  letters  of  introduction  from  Mr.  Ros- 
setti,  she  met,  when  in  Boston,  a  circle  of  interest 
ing  people,  including  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  Colonel 
Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  Horace  E.  Scud- 
der,  etc.,  many  of  whom  she  said  were  of  "such 
intelligence,  culture  and  geniality,  that  it  was  tan 
talizing  to  have  but  brief  intercourse  with  them." 
She  said  she  made  more  acquaintances  in  two 
months  spent  there  than  in  her  whole  life  before. 
She  found  Longfellow  to  be  the  ''most  kindly, 
good-natured,  unaffected  man  possible,  quite  un 
spoiled  by  his  great  popularity ;"  while  Emerson, 
with  whom  she  spent  two  evenings  during  her 

45 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

stay  in  Concord,  was  the  "  picture  of  health  and 
cheerful  serenity,  having  just  such  a  home, 
spacious,  comfortable,  as  one  could  desire  for  him." 
He  seemed  to  her  to  be  the  central  figure  in  the 
town,  "  personally  beloved  and  honored  by  his 
townsmen  in  a  way  pleasant  to  see,  as  well  he  may 
be."  As  they  were  both  friends  of  Carlyle,  the  con 
versation  often  reverted  to  him.  "  Sleepy  Hollow  " 
was  to  her  the  "  sweetest  last  resting-place  poet 
could  desire."  When,  later,  she  was  in  New  York 
City,  she  looked  back  with  increasing  delight  to 
her  three  weeks'  stay  in  Concord,  when  she  found 
warm  friends  in  Frederick  May  Holland  and  Mrs. 
Holland.  She  wrote  them  she  could  not  forget 
her  daily  rows  on  the  little  river,  which,  to  use  a 
favorite  American  phrase,  was  "just  as  pretty  as 
can  be."  "The  Americans  call  it  a  mere  stream," 
she  wrote  Rossetti,  "but  the  English  would  regard 
it  as  a  river  of  respectable  dimensions." 

While  in  New  York  she  had  some  memorable 
evenings  with  Richard  Watson  Gilder  and  other 
literary  lights.  But  she  missed  the  companionship 
of  Walt  Whitman,  which  had  so  filled  the  Philadel 
phia  life.  He  was  near  and  yet  so  far,  though 
letters  passed  between  them.  He  was  on  hand, 
however,  when  the  time  came  for  the  return  to 
England,  June  7,  1879.  They  felt  the  parting 
deeply,  for  her  three  years'  stay  in  America  had 
been  a  real  joy  and  inspiration  to  both. 

46 


Walt  Whitman 

On  arriving  in  England,  Mrs.  Gilchrist  settled 
for  a  time  with  her  eldest  son,  wife,  and  baby  ten 
months  old,  'in  a  little  red-tiled  village,  in  sight 
of  Durham  Cathedral,  to  her  the  "  noblest  sam 
ple  of  Normanesque  in  England."  Twenty-eight 
years  before,  just  after  her  marriage,  she  had 
spent  a  week  there  ;  now,  after  all  her  wander 
ings  of  soul  and  body  into  new  and  strange 
regions,  she  was  there  again,  enjoying  her  children 
and  the  grandson  who  was  to  her  an  "  endless 
source  of  delight,  as  sunny  and  full  of  ceaseless 
movement  as  the  sea."  Walt  Whitman,  in  replying 
to  a  letter  of  hers  from  this  home,  said  he  should 
like  to  see  that  Cathedral,  but  he  didn't  know  to 
which  he  should  go  first — to  "  the  Cathedral  or  that 
baby  !" 

She  found  "  very  precious  "  a  little  map  he  sent, 
on  which  he  traced  in  blue  ink  all  the  wanderings 
of  his  youth,  and  in  red,  his  recent  journey  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  "  Wonders,  revelations,  I 
would  not  have  missed  for  my  life,"  he  wrote. 
"  Fifty  years  from  now  this  region  will  have  a 
hundred  millions  of  people,  the  most  comfortable, 
advanced  and  democratic  on  the  globe ;  indeed,  it 
is  all  this  and  here  that  America  is  for." 

She  had  always  noted  this  intense  love  for  his 
own  land ;  and  yet,  it  was  not  at  the  expense  of 
other  lands.  In  one  of  their  Philadelphia  tea- 
table  talks  he  had  wished  he  could  "  poke  about 

47 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

amongst  the  antiquities  of  Europe  for  two  years." 
He  was  sure  he  would  appreciate  the  treasures, 
adding,  slowly,  "  They  are  for  me."  I  remember  my 
first  thought  on  seeing  the  Vatican  "  torso  "  was 
how  Walt  would  have  enjoyed  it !  I  had  the  same 
feeling  when  in  the  Elgin  room  of  the  British 
Museum. 

On  the  return  of  Mrs.  Gilchrist,  Tennyson  went 
to  see  her,  and  talked  of  Walt  Whitman  and 
America.  He  mentioned  Niagara  Falls  as  being 
an  inducement  to  him  to  cross  the  ocean.  In 
lunching  with  him  she  saw  his  beautiful  grandson, 
and,  of  course,  compared  him  with  her  own. 

Letters  from  America  kept  Anne  in  touch  with 
that  country,  upon  which  she  looked  back  as  a 
"magnificent,  sunny  land  of  promise,"  which,  if  it 
did  not  attain  to  a  higher  ideal  than  had  anywhere 
been  reached,  "  humanity  was  a  failure  and  a  mis 
take  ;"  for  its  chances  there  were  "splendid,  phys 
ical,  social,  intellectual."  She  felt  as  if  she  must 
go  there  again  sometime,  where  there  was  "  such  in 
tellectual  stir  and  brightness,  such  sense  of  expan 
sion  and  encouragement,  sunshine  without  and 
sunshine  within."  And  yet  to  her  it  was  "vast, 
complex,  contradictory  phenomenal  America,"  as 
she  wrote  Rossetti.  She  did  love  and  appreciate 
its  sunlight.  "  Don't  you  Americans  grumble 
about  your  climate,"  she  wrote  the  Hollands  in 
Concord  one  foggy  day,  "  for  it  is  splendid ;  leave 

48 


Walt  Whitman 

all   the   grumbling  and  some  of  the   boasting  to 
us  !" 

A  delightful  correspondence  with  John  Bur 
roughs  was  followed  by  his  visit  to  London.  He 
wished  her  to  tell  him  the  secret  of  the  attraction 
that  London  had  for  "such  a  city -hater"  as  he; 
for  there  was  something  in  the  air  and  in  the  ex 
pression  of  things  that  was  different  from — more 
tender  and  majestic  than — anything  he  had  ex 
perienced  in  cities  at  home.  It  seemed  to  exist 
"  not  for  commerce  or  trade,  like  New  York,  but 
for  life."  Upon  asking  her  what  was  this  "  subtle 
charm  apart  from  its  obvious  advantages  and  bene 
fits,"  she  replied  she  could  not  explain  it.  "It  is 
too  much  a  part  of  me,"  she  said,  "born  and 
bred  as  I  was  there,  for  it  to  be  possible  for  me  to 
look  at  it  from  without,  or  to  question  it  as  a  whole  ; 
it  is  a  curious  miscellaneous  bundle  of  experiences 
and  associations  to  me  ;  happy,  unhappy,  indifferent ; 
and  sometimes  it  looks  grand  to  me,  and  some 
times  almost  demoniac — with  its  miles  of  misery 
seething  in  the  yellow,  murky  air — and  its  hard  and 
cruel  prosperity — miles  of  that  too  ;  but  I  suppose 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is  half  so  bad  as  it 
looks,  and  that  there  is  a  solid  good  heart  and  the 
best  of  brains  within  the  monster."  She  hoped 
that  on  his  next  visit  to  London  he  would  see  more 
of  "  English  humanity;"  not  "society,"  but  a  few 
men  and  women  in  easy,  friendly  intercourse,  such 
4  49 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

as,  perhaps,  could  be  gathered  from  time  to  time ; 
and,  she  concluded,  "  I  can  answer  for  their  taking 
cordially  to  you  and  you  to  them." 

He  wrote  her  that  he  was  resting  in  the  hope 
that  she  would  give  herself  up  to  writing  the  article 
on  Walt  Whitman  for  which  they  were  all  looking. 
"  I  feel  sure,"  he  said,  "  that  you  will  cut  your  way 
to  the  heart  of  this  matter  as  no  one  has  yet  done." 

But  just  then  she  had  other  work  to  do,  the 
Life  of  Mary  Lamb  for  the  Eminent  Women  Series, 
written  at  the  request  of  John  H.  Ingram.  The 
writing  of  this  was  a  "  great  solace  "  to  her.  It  en 
abled  her  to  bring  out  the  domestic  side  of  Charles 
Lamb  in  a  clearer  light  than  Talfourd  or  Procter 
had  done.  On  its  publication  in  1883,  Mary  Cow- 
den  Clark  wrote  her,  from  Genoa,  a  most  apprecia 
tive  letter,  regarding  it  as  one  of  the  "  most  perfect 
pieces  of  biographical  compositions  "  she  ever  read. 
She  noted  particularly  the  "  exquisitely  tender 
spirit"  in  which  she  had  achieved  her  task.  The 
Academy  pronounced  it  to  be  a  "  thoughtful  and 
sympathetic  life."  W.  M.  Rossetti  said  of  it,  "A 
very  substantial,  able  and  even  masterly  piece  of 
work ;  full  without  wordiness  and  remarkable  for 
that  true  and  nice  discrimination  of  character  which 
neither  sympathy  without  comprehension  nor  com 
prehension  unprompted  by  sympathy  could  sup 
ply."  It  was  said  to  be  the  best  of  the  series,  and, 
with  one  exception,  the  most  popular. 

5° 


JOHN  BURROUGHS. 


Walt  Whitman 

When  this  work  was  done,  Mrs.  Gilchrist  did  not 
forget  John  Burroughs'  desire  and  advice.  "  I  must 
try  once  more,"  she  wrote,  "to  give  a  reason  for 
the  faith  that  is  in  me."  As  a  result,  "  A  Confes 
sion  of  Faith  "*  was  written,  which  proved  to  be 
about  her  last  piece  of  finished  work.  It  was 
published  in  a  London  magazine  a  short  time  before 
her  death.  "  Most  people  will  think  her  worship 
of  Walt  Whitman  excessive,"  said  the  Athenczum 
(March  26,  1887),  "  but  that  its  effect  on  her  own 
character  was  wholly  beneficial  can  hardly  be 
doubted." 

She  was  living  at  this  time  in  the  Hampstead 
home,  bought  in  1879.  A  deep  bow-window  gave 
her  a  pretty  outlook  over  an  old  Hampstead  gar 
den.  With  different  friends,  or  alone,  she  took 
quiet  rambles  on  the  Hampstead  Heath,  or  through 
the  old  streets  where  Constable  and  Richardson 
had  worked,  and  where  Du  Maurier  and  many  an 
other  artist  lived.  Her  hospitable  home  was 
thrown  open  on  Sundays  to  her  friends,  including 
Sir  Frederick  Leighton  and  other  London  artists. 
In  this  Hampstead  home  she  prepared  a  second 
edition  of  the  Life  of  William  Blake,  to  which 
she  added  a  Memoir  of  her  husband.  In  this, 
as  in  the  earlier  edition,  she  had  the  assistance 
of  the  Rossettis,  especially  Dante  Gabriel.  She 
ever  appreciated  the  genius  of  this  painter,  and 

*  See  Appendix. 
51 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

mourned  his  departure  from  earth.  His  death,  she 
wrote  the  brother  William,  made  her  believe  more 
than  ever  "  in  Nature's  great  laws  of  Continuity  and 
Indestructibility  for  souls  as  well  as  for  atoms  and 
forces."  If  she  had  not  believed  this,  as  well  as  in 
the  "  transfers  and  promotions,"  she  said  she  could 
not  have  borne  the  burden  of  life  after  her  daughter 
Beatrice  was  taken  from  her. 

In  this  Hampstead  home  she  had  begun  some  per 
sonal  reminiscences  of  the  Carlyles  when  her  last  ill 
ness  came  upon  her.  The  "  transfer  and  promotion  " 
was  finally  hers  one  Sunday  evening  in  November, 
1885  (November  29),  when  she  gave  herself  up  to 
the  "  sure-enwinding  arms  of  cool-enfolding  death." 
She  was  in  her  fifty-eighth  year,  and  it  was  just 
twenty-four  years,  lacking  a  day,  since  her  husband 
had  been  taken  from  her. 

The  leading  London  journals  paid  most  beautiful 
tributes  to  her.  The  Academy  (December  5,  1885) 
said  "  she  combined  in  an  unusual  degree  the  quali 
ties  of  mature  wisdom,  fine  literary  tact,  and  a  per 
fect  womanly  sweetness  of  temper." 

Edward  Dowden  wrote,  "I  shall  always  have 
the  memory  of  her  brightness,  kindness,  wisdom ; 
and  of  the  varied  learning  and  culture  which  ap 
peared,  as  it  were,  under  and  through  a  genial 
humanity  that  put  a  spell  on  one  beyond  culture  or 
learning." 

Her  American  friends  deeply  mourned  her.  John 
52 


Walt  Whitman 

Burroughs,  upon  hearing  the  news,  wrote  her  son 
Herbert,  "  Few  men  have  had  such  a  mother  as 
you.  She  was  the  only  woman  I  have  ever  seen  to 
whose  strength  of  mind  and  character  I  humbly 
bowed.  As  I  think  of  her  death,  a  shadow  comes 
over  the  whole  of  that  beautiful  land  ;  now  she  is 
gone,  I  see  how  much  she  stood  to  me  for  all 
England." 

Walt  Whitman,  on  being  told  the  news,  sat  quiet, 
and  finally,  in  a  deeper  tone  than  usual,  he  said,  "  A 
sincere  and  loving  friend."  (Donaldson's  Walt 
Whitman.)  He  wrote  to  Herbert,  "Nothing  now 
remains  but  a  sweet  and  rich  memory — none  more 
beautiful,  all  time,  all  life,  all  the  earth."  But  he 
could  not  go  on — he  "  must  sit  alone  and  think." 

Later,  however,  when  this  son  was  preparing  a 
biography  of  his  mother,  the  poet  made  haste  to 
write,  "  I  cannot  let  your  book  go  to  press  without 
at  least  saying — and  wishing  it  put  on  record — 
that  among  the  perfect  women  I  have  known  (and 
it  has  been  my  unspeakable  good  fortune  to  have 
had  the  very  best  for  mother,  sisters  and  friends), 
I  have  known  none  more  perfect  in  every  relation 
than  my  dear,  dear  friend,  Anne  Gilchrist." 

To  the  close  of  his  life,  nearly  seven  years  later, 
he  ever  held  her  in  tender  remembrance.  When 
ever  he  mused  and  thought  of  his  best  friends  in 
their  distant  homes,  either  here  or  within  the  veil — 
of  William  O'Connor,  of  Maurice  Bucke,  of  John 

53 


Anne  Gilchrist  and 

Burroughs,  he  included  her — "  friends  of  my  soul — 
staunchest  friends  of  my  other  soul,  my  poems." 
At  his  last  birthday  dinner  on  earth — 1891 — upon 
hearing  greetings  read  from  some  English  ladies,  he 
said,  "  I  ask  myself  more  than  a  little  if  my  best 
friends  have  not  been  women.  My  friend,  Mrs. 
Gilchrist,  one  of  the  earliest,  a  picked  woman,  pro 
found,  noble,  sacrificing,  saw  clearly  when  almost 
everybody  else  was  interested  in  raising  the  dust — 
obscuring  what  was  true." 

One  cannot  read  his  tribute  to  her — Going  Some 
where — without  catching  glimpses  of  the  breadth 
and  depth  of  soul  which  animated  their  intercourse. 

"  My  science-friend,  my  noblest  woman-friend, 

(Now  buried  in  an  English  grave — and  this  a  memory-leaf 
for  her  dear  sake) 

Ended  our  talk — The  sum,  concluding  all  we  know  of  old 
or  modern  learning,  intuitions  deep, 

Of  all  Geologies — Histories — of  all  Astronomy — of  Evolu 
tion,  Metaphysics,  all, 

Is  that  we  all  are  onward,  onward,  speeding,  slowly,  surely, 
bettering, 

Life,  life  an  endless  march,  an  endless  army  (no  halt,  but  it 
is  duly  over), 

The  world,  the  race,  the  soul — in  space  and  time  the  uni 
verses, 

All  bound  as  is  befitting  each — all  surely  going  somewhere." 

Whenever,  in  the  far-distant  future,  Walt  Whit 
man's  poems  shall  be  read — 

("  See,  projected  through  time, 
For  me  an  audience  interminable,") 
54 


Walt  Whitman 

this  tribute  to  Anne  Gilchrist  will  be  doubly  glo 
rious,  because  found  to  crown  one  of  the  grand 
est,  purest  affections  this  age  or  any  age  has  re 
vealed. 

ELIZABETH  PORTER  GOULD. 

BOSTON,  MASSACHUSETTS. 


55 


APPENDIX 

A  Confession  of  Faitli 


BY 

ANNE  GILGHRIST 


ANNE  GILCIIRIST. 


A  Confession  of  Faith 


"  Of  genius  in  the  Fine  Arts,"  wrote  Words 
worth,  "the  only  infallible  sign  is  the  widening  the 
sphere  of  human  sensibility  for  the  delight,  honor, 
and  benefit  of  human  nature.  Genius  is  the  intro 
duction  of  a  new  element  into  the  intellectual  uni 
verse,  or,  if  that  be  not  allowed,  it  is  the  application 
of  powers  to  objects  on  which  they  had  not  before 
been  exercised,  or  the  employment  of  them  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  produce  effects  hitherto  unknown. 
What  is  all  this  but  an  advance  or  conquest  made 
by  the  soul  of  the  poet  ?  Is  it  to  be  supposed  that 
the  reader  can  make  progress  of  this  kind  like  an 
Indian  prince  or  general  stretched  on  his  palanquin 
and  borne  by  slaves  ?  No  ;  he  is  invigorated  and 
inspirited  by  his  leader  in  order  that  he  may  exert 
himself,  for  he  cannot  proceed  in  quiescence,  he 
cannot  be  carried  like  a  dead  weight.  Therefore 
to  create  taste  is  to  call  forth  and  bestow  power." 

A  great  poet,  then,  is  "a  challenge  and  sum 
mons  ;"  and  the  question  first  of  all  is  not  whether 
we  like  or  dislike  him,  but  whether  we  are  capable 
of  meeting  that  challenge,  of  stepping  out  of  our 
habitual  selves  to  answer  that  summons.  He  works 
on  Nature's  plan :  Nature,  who  teaches  nothing  but 
supplies  infinite  material  to  learn  from ;  who  never 

59 


A  Confession  of  Faith 

preaches  but  drives  home  her  meanings  by  the  re 
sistless  eloquence  of  effects.  Therefore  the  poet 
makes  greater  demands  upon  his  reader  than  any 
other  man.  For  it  is  not  a  question  of  swallowing 
his  ideas  or  admiring  his  handiwork  merely,  but  of 
seeing,  feeling,  enjoying,  as  he  sees,  feels,  enjoys. 
"  The  messages  of  great  poems  to  each  man  and 
woman  are,"  says  Walt  Whitman,  "  come  to  us  on 
equal  terms,  only  then  can  you  understand  us. 
We  are  no  better  than  you  ;  what  we  enclose  you 
enclose,  what  we  enjoy  you  may  enjoy" — no  bet 
ter  than  you  potentially,  that  is  ;  but  if  you  would 
understand  us  the  potential  must  become  the  actual, 
the  dormant  sympathies  must  awaken  and  broaden, 
the  dulled  perceptions  clear  themselves  and  let  in 
undreamed  of  delights,  the  wonder-working  imagi 
nation  must  respond,  the  ear  attune  itself,  the  lan 
guid  soul  inhale  large  draughts  of  love  and  hope 
and  courage,  those  "empyreal  airs"  that  vitalize 
the  poet's  world.  No  wonder  the  poet  is  long  in 
finding  his  audience ;  no  wonder  he  has  to  abide 
the  "inexorable  tests  of  Time,"  which,  if  indeed  he 
be  great,  slowly  turns  the  handful  into  hundreds, 
the  hundreds  into  thousands,  and  at  last,  having  done 
its  worst,  grudgingly  passes  him  on  into  the  ranks 
of  the  Immortals. 

Meanwhile  let  not  the  handful  who  believe  that 
such  a  destiny  awaits  a  man  of  our  time  cease  to 
give  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  them. 

So  far  as  the  suffrages  of  his  own  generation  go 
Walt  Whitman  may,  like  Wordsworth,  tell  of  the 
"  love,  the  admiration,  the  indifference,  the  slight, 
the  aversion  and  even  the  contempt"  with  which 
his  poems  have  been  received ;  but  the  love  and  ad- 

60 


Anne  Gilchrist 

miration  are  from  even  a  smaller  number,  the  aver 
sion,  the  contempt  more  vehement,  more  universal 
and  persistent  than  Wordsworth  ever  encountered. 
For  the  American  is  a  more  daring  innovator ;  he 
cuts  loose  from  precedent,  is  a  very  Columbus  who 
has  sailed  forth  alone  on  perilous  seas  to  seek  new 
shores,  to  seek  a  new  world  for  the  soul,  a  world 
that  shall  give  scope  and  elevation  and  beauty  to  the 
changed  and  changing  events,  aspirations,  condi 
tions  of  modern  life.  To  new  aims,  new  methods ; 
therefore  let  not  the  reader  approach  these  poems 
as  a  judge,  comparing,  testing,  measuring  by  what 
has  gone  before,  but  as  a  willing  learner,  an  unpre 
judiced  seeker  for  whatever  may  delight  and  nour 
ish  and  exalt  the  soul.  Neither  let  him  be  abashed 
nor  daunted  by  the  weight  of  adverse  opinion,  the 
contempt  and  denial  which  have  been  heaped  upon 
the  great  American  even  though  it  be  the  contempt 
and  denial  of  the  capable,  the  cultivated,  the  recog 
nized  authorities ;  for  such  is  the  usual  lot  of  the 
pioneer  in  whatever  field.  In  religion  it  is  above 
all  to  the  earnest  and  conscientious  believer  that 
the  Reformer  has  appeared  a  blasphemer,  and  in  the 
world  of  literature  it  is  equally  natural  that  the 
most  careful  student,  that  the  warmest  lover  of  the 
accepted  masterpieces,  should  be  the  most  hostile 
to  one  who  forsakes  the  methods  by  which,  or  at 
any  rate,  in  company  with  which,  those  triumphs 
have  been  achieved.  "But,"  said  the  wise  Goethe, 
"  I  will  listen  to  any  man's  convictions ;  you  may 
keep  your  doubts,  your  negations  to  yourself,  I 
have  plenty  of  my  own."  For  heartfelt  convictions 
are  rare  things.  Therefore  I  make  bold  to  indicate 
the  scope  and  source  of  power  in  Walt  Whitman's 

61 


A  Confession  of  Faith 

writings,  starting  from  no  wider  ground  than  their 
effect  upon  an  individual  mind.  It  is  not  criticism 
I  have  to  offer ;  least  of  all  any  discussion  of  the 
question  of  form  or  formlessness  in  these  poems, 
deeply  convinced  as  I  am  that  when  great  meanings 
and  great  emotions  are  expressed  with  correspond 
ing  power,  literature  has  done  its  best,  call  it  what 
you  please.  But  my  aim  is  rather  to  suggest  such 
trains  of  thought,  such  experience  of  life  as  having 
served  to  put  me  en  rapport  with  this  poet  may 
haply  find  here  and  there  a  reader  who  is  thereby 
helped  to  the  same  end.  Hence  I  quote  just  as 
freely  from  the  prose  (especially  from  "  Democratic 
Vistas  "  and  the  preface  to  the  first  issue  of  "  Leaves 
of  Grass,"  1855)  as  from  his  poems,  and  more 
freely,  perhaps,  from  those  parts  that  have  proved  a 
stumbling-block  than  from  those  whose  conspicu 
ous  beauty  assures  them  acceptance. 

Fifteen  years  ago,  with  feelings  partly  of  indiffer 
ence,  partly  of  antagonism, — for  I  had  heard  none 
but  ill  words  of  them — I  first  opened  Walt  Whit 
man's  poems.  But  as  I  read  I  became  conscious 
of  receiving  the  most  powerful  influence  that  had 
ever  come  to  me  from  any  source.  What  was  the 
spell  ?  It  was  that  in  them  humanity  has,  in  a  new 
sense,  found  itself;  for  the  first  time  has  dared  to 
accept  itself  without  disparagement,  without  reser 
vation.  For  the  first  time  an  unrestricted  faith  in 
all  that  is  and  in  the  issues  of  all  that  happens  has 
burst  forth  triumphantly  into  song. 

"  .     .     .     The  rapture  of  the  hallelujah  sent 
From  all  that  breathes  and  is     .     .     ." 

rings  through  these  poems.     They  carry  up  into 

62 


Anne  Gilchrist 

the  region  of  Imagination  and  Passion  those  vaster 
and  more  profound  conceptions  of  the  universe 
and  of  man  reached  by  centuries  of  that  indomi 
tably  patient  organized  search  for  knowledge,  that 
"skilful  cross-questioning  of  things"  called  science. 

"  O  truth  of  the  earth  I  am  determined  to  press  my  way  to 
ward  you. 

Sound  your  voice  !  I  scale  the  mountains,  I  dive  in  the  sea 
after  you," 

cried  science ;  and  the  earth  and  the  sky  have  an 
swered,  and  continue  inexhaustibly  to  answer  her 
appeal.  And  now  at  last  the  day  dawns  which 
Wordsworth  prophesied  of:  "  The  man  of  science," 
he  wrote,  "seeks  truth  as  a  remote  and  unknown 
benefactor ;  he  cherishes  and  loves  it  in  his  soli 
tude.  The  Poet,  singing  a  song  in  which  all  human 
beings  join  with  him,  rejoices  in  the  presence  of 
truth  as  our  visible  friend  and  hourly  companion. 
Poetry  is  the  breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowl 
edge  ;  it  is  the  impassioned  expression  which  is  in  the 
countenance  of  all  science,  it  is  the  first  and  last  of  all 
knowlege ;  it  is  immortal  as  the  heart  of  man.  If  the 
labors  of  men  of  science  should  ever  create  any 
material  revolution,  direct  or  indirect,  in  our  condi 
tion,  and  in  the  impressions  which  we  habitually 
receive,  the  Poet  will  then  sleep  no  more  than  at 
present ;  he  will  be  ready  to  follow  the  steps  of  the 
man  of  science  not  only  in  those  general  indirect 
effects,  but  he  will  be  at  his  side  carrying  sensation 
into  the  midst  of  the  objects  of  science  itself.  If 
the  time  should  ever  come  when  what  is  now  called 
science,  thus  familiarized  to  man,  shall  be  ready  to 
put  on,  as  it  were,  a  form  of  flesh  and  blood,  the 

63 


A  Confession  of  Faith 

Poet  will  lend  his  divine  spirit  to  aid  the  transfigur 
ation,  and  will  welcome  the  being  thus  produced  as 
a  dear  and  genuine  inmate  of  the  household  of 
man."  That  time  approaches  :  a  new  heaven  and 
a  new  earth  await  us  when  the  knowledge  grasped 
by  science  is  realized,  conceived  as  a  whole,  related 
to  the  world  within  us  by  the  shaping  spirit  of 
imagination.  Not  in  vain,  already,  for  this  Poet 
have  they  pierced  the  darkness  of  the  past,  and 
read  here  and  there  a  word  of  the  earth's  history 
before  human  eyes  beheld  it ;  each  word  of  infinite 
significance,  because  involving  in  it  secrets  of  the 
whole.  A  new  anthem  of  the  slow,  vast,  mystic 
dawn  of  life  he  sings  in  the  name  of  humanity  : — 

"  I  am  an  acme  of  things  accomplish'd,  and  I  am  an  en- 
closer  of  things  to  be. 

My  feet  strike  an  apex  of  the  apices  of  the  stairs ; 

On  every  step  bunches  of  ages,  and  larger  bunches  between 

the  steps ; 
All  below  duly  travell'd  and  still  I  mount  and  mount. 

Rise  after  rise  bow  the  phantoms  behind  me : 

Afar  down  I  see  the  huge  first  Nothing — I  know 

I  was  even  there  ; 

I  waited  unseen  and  always,  and  slept  through  the  lethargic 

mist, 
And  took  my  time,  and  took  no  hurt  from  the  fetid  carbon. 

Long  I  was  hugg'd  close — long  and  long. 

Immense  have  been  the  preparations  for  me, 
Faithful  and  friendly  the  arms  that  have  help'd  me. 

Cycles  ferried  my  cradle,  rowing  and  rowing  like  cheerful 

boatmen ; 

For  room  to  me  stars  kept  aside  in  their  own  rings, 
They  sent  influences  to  look  after  what  was  to  hold  me. 


Anne  Gilchrist 


Before  I   was  born  out  of  my  mother,  generations  guided 

me  ; 
My  embryo  has  never  been  torpid — nothing  could  overlay 

it. 

For  it  the  nebula  cohered  to  an  orb, 
The  long  slow  strata  piled  to  rest  it  on, 
Vast  vegetables  gave  it  sustenance, 

Monstrous  saurpids  transported  it  in  their  mouths  and  de 
posited  it  with  care. 

All  forces  have  been  steadily  employ'd  to  complete  and  de 
light  me; 
Now  on  this  spot  I  stand  with  my  robust  Soul." 

Not  in  vain  have  they  pierced  space  as  well  as 
time  and  found  "  a  vast  similitude  interlocking  all." 

"  I  open  my  scuttle  at  night  and  see  the  far-sprinkled  sys 
tems, 

And  all  I  see,  multipled  as  high  as  I  can  cypher,  edge  but 
the  rim  of  the  farther  systems. 

Wider  and  wider  they  spread,  expanding,  always  expand 
ing, 
Outward,  and  outward,  and  for  ever  outward. 

My  sun  has  his  sun,  and  round  him  obediently  wheels, 
He  joins  with  his  partners  a  group  of  superior  circuit, 
And  greater  sets  follow,  making  specks  of  the  greatest  inside 
them. 

There  is  no  stoppage,  and  never  can  be  stoppage ; 

If  I,  you,  and  the  worlds,  and  all  beneath  or  upon  their  sur 
faces,  were  this  moment  reduced  back  to  a  pallid 
float,  it  would  not  avail  in  the  long  run  ; 

We  should  surely  bring  up  again  where  we  now  stand, 

And  as  surely  go  as  much  farther — and  then  farther  and 
farther."' 

Not  in  vain  for  him  have  they  penetrated  into 
the  substances  of  things  to  find  that  what  we  thought 
5  65 


A  Confession  of  Faith 

poor,  dead,  inert  matter  is  (in  Clerk  Maxwell's 
words),  "  a  very  sanctuary  of  minuteness  and  power 
where  molecules  obey  the  laws  of  their  existence, 
and  clash  together  in  fierce  collision,  or  grapple  in 
yet  more  fierce  embrace,  building  up  in  secret  the 
forms  of  visible  things  ;"  each  stock  and  stone  a 
busy  group  of  Ariels  plying  obediently  their  hidden 
tasks. 

"  Why  !  who  makes  much  of  a  miracle  ? 

As  to  me,  I  know  of  nothing  else  but  miracles, 

To  me  every  hour  of  the  light  and  dark  is  a  miracle, 

Every  cubic  inch  of  space  is  a  miracle, 

Every  square  yard  of  the  surface  of  the  earth  is  spread  with 

the  same,         .... 
Every  spear  of  grass — the  frames,  limbs,  organs,  of  men  and 

women,  and  all  that  concerns  them, 
All  these  to  me  are  unspeakably  perfect  miracles." 

The  natural  is  the  supernatural,  says  Carlyle. 
It  is  the  message  that  comes  to  our  time  from  all 
quarters  alike ;  from  poetry,  from  science,  from  the 
deep  brooding  of  the  student  of  human  history. 
Science  materialistic  ?  Rather  it  is  the  current 
theology  that  is  materialistic  in  comparison.  Sci 
ence  may  truly  be  said  to  have  annihilated  our 
gross  and  brutish  conceptions  of  matter,  and  to 
have  revealed  it  to  us  as  subtle,  spiritual,  energetic 
beyond  our  powers  of  realization.  It  is  for  the 
Poet  to  increase  the  powers  of  realization.  He  it 
is  who  must  awaken  us  to  the  perception  of  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth  here  where  we  stand  on 
this  old  earth.  He  it  is  who  must,  in  Walt  Whit 
man's  words,  indicate  the  path  between  reality  and 
the  soul. 

Above  all  is  every  thought  and  feeling  in  these 
66 


Anne  Gilchrist 

poems  touched  by  the  light  of  the  great  revolution 
ary  truth  that  man,  unfolded  through  vast  stretches 
of  time  out  of  lowly  antecedents,  is  a  rising,  not  a 
fallen  creature ;  emerging  slowly  from  purely  ani 
mal  life  ;  as  slowly  as  the  strata  are  piled  and  the 
ocean  beds  hollowed ;  whole  races  still  barely 
emerged,  countless  individuals  in  the  foremost  races 
barely  emerged  :  "  the  wolf,  the  snake,  the  hog" 
yet  lingering  in  the  best ;  but  new  ideals  achieved, 
and  others  come  in  sight,  so  that  what  once  seemed 
fit  is  fit  no  longer,  is  adhered  to  uneasily  and  with 
shame  ;  the  conflicts  and  antagonisms  between  what 
we  call  good  and  evil,  at  once  the  sign  and  the  means 
of  emergence,  and  needing  to  account  for  them  no 
supposed  primeval  disaster,  no  outside  power 
thwarting  and  marring  the  Divine  handiwork,  the 
perfect  fitness  to  its  time  and  place  of  all  that  has 
proceeded  from  the  Great  Source.  In  a  word  that 
Evil  is  relative  ;  is  that  which  the  slowly  developing 
reason  and  conscience  bid  us  leave  behind.  The 
prowess  of  the  lion,  the  subtlety  of  the  fox,  are 
cruelty  and  duplicity  in  man. 

"  Silent  and  amazed,  when  a  little  boy, 

I  remember  I  heard  the  preacher  every  Sunday  put  God  in 

his  statements, 
As  contending  against  some  being  or  influence," 

says  the  poet.  And  elsewhere,  "  Faith,  very  old 
now,  scared  away  by  science  " — by  the  daylight 
science  lets  in  upon  our  miserable  inadequate, 
idolatrous  conceptions  of  God  and  of  His  works, 
and  on  the  sophistications,  subterfuges,  moral  im 
possibilities,  by  which  we  have  endeavored  to  recon 
cile  the  irreconcilable — the  coexistence  of  omnip- 

67 


A  Confession  of  Faith 

otent  Goodness  and  an  absolute  Power  of  Evil, — 
"  Faith  must  be  brought  back  by  the  same  power 
that  caused  her  departure  :  restored  with  new  sway, 
deeper,  wider,  higher  than  ever."  And  what  else, 
indeed,  at  bottom,  is  science  so  busy  at?  For 
what  is  Faith  ?  "  Faith,"  to  borrow  venerable  and 
unsurpassed  words,  "is  the  substance  of  things 
hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen."  And 
how  obtain  evidence  of  things  not  seen  but  by  a 
knowledge  of  things  seen  ?  And  how  know  what 
we  may  hope  for,  but  by  knowing  the  truth  of  what 
is,  here  and  now  ?  For  seen  and  unseen  are  parts 
of  the  Great  Whole :  all  the  parts  interdependent, 
closely  related  ;  all  alike  have  proceeded  from  and 
are  manifestations  of  the  Divine  Source.  Nature  is 
not  the  barrier  between  us  and  the  unseen,  but  the 
link,  the  communication ;  she  too  has  something 
behind  appearances,  has  an  unseen  soul ;  she  too  is 
made  of  "innumerable  energies."  Knowledge  is 
not  faith,  but  it  is  faith's  indispensable  preliminary 
and  starting  ground.  Faith  runs  ahead  to  fetch 
glad  tidings  for  us ;  but  if  she  start  from  a  basis 
of  ignorance  and  illusion,  how  can  she  but  run  in 
the  wrong  direction  ?  "  Suppose,"  said  that  impet 
uous  lover  and  seeker  of  truth,  Clifford,  "  Suppose 
all  moving  things  to  be  suddenly  stopped  at  some 
instant,  and  that  we  could  be  brought  fresh,  with 
out  any  previous  knowledge,  to  look  at  the  petri 
fied  scene.  The  spectacle  would  be  immensely 
absurd.  Crowds  of  people  would  be  senselessly 
standing  on  one  leg  in  the  street  looking  at  one  an 
other's  backs ;  others  would  be  wasting  their  time 
by  sitting  in  a  train  in  a  place  difficult  to  get  at, 
nearly  all  with  their  mouths  open,  and  their  bodies 

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in  some  contorted,  unrestful  posture.  Clocks  would 
stand  with  their  pendulums  on  one  side.  Every 
thing  would  be  disorderly,  conflicting,  in  its  wrong 
place.  But  once  remember  that  the  v/orld  is  in 
motion,  is  going  somewhere,  and  everything  will  be 
accounted  for  and  found  just  as  it  should  be.  Just 
so  great  a  change  of  view,  just  so  complete  an  ex 
planation  is  given  to  us  when  we  recognize  that  the 
nature  of  man  and  beast  and  of  all  the  world  is 
going  somewhere.  The  maladaptions  in  organic 
nature  are  seen  to  be  steps  toward  the  improvement 
or  discarding  of  imperfect  organs.  The  baneful 
strife  which  lurketh  inborn  in  us,  and  goeth  on  the 
way  with  us  to  hurt  us,  is  found  to  be  the  relic  of  a 
time  of  savage  or  even  lower  condition."  "  Going 
somewhere  !"  That  is  the  meaning  then  of  all  our 
perplexities  !  That  changes  a  mystery  which  stul 
tified  and  contradicted  the  best  we  knew  into  a 
mystery  which  teaches,  allures,  elevates ;  which 
harmonizes  what  we  know  with  what  we  hope. 
By  it  we  begin  to 

"  .          .          .          see  by  the  glad  light, 
And  breathe  the  sweet  air  of  futurity." 

The  scornful  laughter  of  Carlyle  as  he  points  with 
one  hand  to  the  baseness,  ignorance,  folly,  cruelty 
around  us,  and  with  the  other  to  the  still  unsur 
passed  poets,  sages,  heroes,  saints  of  antiquity, 
whilst  he  utters  the  words  "  progress  of  the  species  !" 
touches  us  no  longer  when  we  have  begun  to  realize 
"the  amplitude  of  time ;"  when  we  know  some 
thing  of  the  scale  by  which  Nature  measures  out 
the  years  to  accomplish  her  smallest  essential  modi 
fication  or  development ;  know  that  to  call  a  few 

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A  Confession  of  Faith 

thousands  or  tens  of  thousands  of  years  antiquity, 
is  to  speak  as  a  child,  and  that  in  her  chronology 
the  great  days  of  Egypt  and  Syria,  of  Greece  and 
Rome  are  affairs  of  yesterday. 


"  Each  of  us  inevitable  ; 

Each  of  us  limitless — each  of  us  with  his  or  her  right  upon 

the  earth ; 

Each  of  us  allow' d  the  eternal  purports  of  the  earth  ; 
Each  of  us  here  as  divinely  as  any  are  here. 

You  Hottentot  with  clicking  palate !  You  woolly  hair'd 
hordes ! 

You  own'd  persons,  dropping  sweat-drops  or  blood-drops  ! 

You  human  forms  with  the  fathomless  ever-impressive  coun 
tenances  of  brutes ! 

I  dare  not  refuse  you — the  scope  of  the  world,  and  of  time 
and  space  are  upon  me. 

I  do  not  prefer  others  so  very  much  before  you  either  ; 

I  do  not  say  one  word  against  you,  away  back  there,  where 

you  stand ; 
(You  will  come  forward  in  due  time  to  my  side.) 

My  spirit  has  pass'd  in  compassion  and  determination  around 

the  whole  earth  ; 
I  have  look'd  for  equals  and  lovers,  and  found  them  ready 

for  me  in  all  lands  ; 
I  think  some  divine  rapport  has  equalized  me  with  them. 

0  vapors  !  I  think  I  have  risen  with  you,  and  moved  away 

to  distant  continents  and  fallen  down  there,  for  rea 
sons  ; 

1  think  I  have  blown  with  you,  O  winds ; 

0  waters,  I  have  finger'd  every  shore  with  you. 

1  have  run  through  what  any  river  or  strait  of  the  globe  has 

run  through  ; 

I  have  taken  my  stand  on  the  bases  of  peninsulas,  and  on 
the  high  embedded  rocks,  to  cry  thence. 
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Salut  au  monde  ! 
What  cities  the  light  or  warmth  penetrates,  I  penetrate  those 

cities  myself; 
All  islands  to  which  birds  wing  their  way  I  wing  my  way 

myself. 

Toward  all, 

I  raise  high  the  perpendicular  hand — I  make  the  signal, 
To  remain  after  me  in  sight  forever, 
For  all  the  haunts  and  homes  of  men." 

But  "  Hold  !"  says  the  reader,  especially  if  he  be 
one  who  loves  science,  who  loves  to  feel  the  firm 
ground  under  his  feet,  "  That  the  species  has  a  great 
future  before  it  we  may  well  believe ;  already  we 
see  the  indications.  But  that  the  individual  has  is 
quite  another  matter.  We  can  but  balance  proba 
bilities  here,  and  the  probabilities  are  very  heavy  on 
the  wrong  side  ;  the  poets  must  throw  in  weighty 
matter  indeed  to  turn  the  scale  the  other  way  !" 
Be  it  so  :  but  ponder  a  moment  what  science  her 
self  has  to  say  bearing  on  this  theme  ;  what  are  the 
widest,  deepest  facts  she  has  reached  down  to. 
INDESTRUCTIBILITY  :  Amidst  ceaseless  change  and 
seeming  decay  all  the  elements,  all  the  forces  (if 
indeed  they  be  not  one  and  the  same)  which  oper 
ate  and  substantiate  those  changes,  imperishable ; 
neither  matter  nor  force  capable  of  annihilation. 
Endless  transformations,  disappearances,  new  com 
binations,  but  diminution  of  the  total  amount  never ; 
missing  in  one  place  or  shape  to  be  found  in  an 
other,  disguised  ever  so  long,  ready  always  to  re- 
emerge.  "A  particle  of  oxygen/'  wrote  Faraday, 
"is  ever  a  particle  of  oxygen;  nothing  can  in  the 
least  wear  it.  If  it  enters  into  combination  and 
disappears  as  oxygen,  if  it  pass  through  a  thousand 
combinations,  animal,  vegetable,  mineral, — if  it  lie 


A  Confession  of  Faith 

hid  for  a  thousand  years  and  then  be  evolved,  it  is 
oxygen  with  its  first  qualities  neither  more  nor 
less."  So  then  out  of  the  universe  is  no  door. 
CONTINUITY  again  is  one  of  Nature's  irrevocable 
words  ;  everything  the  result  and  outcome  of  what 
went  before  ;  no  gaps,  no  jumps  ;  always  a  connect 
ing  principle  which  carries  forward  the  great  scheme 
of  things  as  a  related  whole,  which  subtly  links 
past  and  present,  like  and  unlike.  Nothing  breaks 
with  its  past.  "It  is  not,"  says  Helmholtz,  "the 
definite  mass  of  substance  which  now  constitutes 
the  body  to  which  the  continuance  of  the  individual 
is  attached.  Just  as  the  flame  remains  the  same  in 
appearance  and  continues  to  exist  with  the  same 
form  and  structure  although  it  draws  every  moment 
fresh  combustible  vapor  and  fresh  oxygen  from  the 
air  into  the  vortex  of  its  ascending  current ;  and 
just  as  the  wave  goes  on  in  unaltered  form  and 
is  yet  being  reconstructed  every  moment  from  fresh 
particles  of  water,  so  is  it  also  in  the  living  being. 
For  the  material  of  the  body  like  that  of  flame  is 
subject  to  continuous  and  comparatively  rapid 
change, — a  change  the  more  rapid  the  livelier  the 
activity  of  the  organs  in  question.  Some  constitu 
ents  are  renewed  from  day  to  day,  some  from 
month  to  month,  and  others  only  after  years.  That 
which  continues  to  exist  as  a  particular  individual 
is,  like  the  wave  and  the  flame,  only  the  form  of 
motion  which  continually  attracts  fresh  matter  into 
its  vortex  and  expels  the  old.  The  observer  with  a 
deaf  ear  recognizes  the  vibration  of  sound  as  long  as 
it  is  visible  and  can  be  felt,  bound  up  with  other 
heavy  matter.  Are  our  senses  in  reference  to  life 
like  the  deaf  ear  in  this  respect  ?" 

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Anne  Gilchrist 


"  You  are  not  thrown  to  the  winds — you  gather  certainly  and 
safely  around  yourself; 

It  is  not  to  diffuse  you  that  you  were  born  of  your  mother 

and  father — it  is  to  identify  you  ; 
It  is  not  that  you  should  be  undecided,  but  that  you  should 

be  decided ; 
Something  long  preparing  and  formless  is  arrived  and  form'd 

in  you, 
You  are  henceforth  secure,  whatever  comes  or  goes. 

O  Death  !  the  voyage  of  Death  ! 

The  beautiful  touch  of  Death,  soothing  and  benumbing  a  few 
moments  for  reasons ; 

Myself  discharging  my  excrementitious  body  to  be  burn'd  or 
reduced  to  powder  or  buried. 

My  real  body  doubtless  left  me  for  other  spheres, 

My  voided  body,  nothing  more  to  me,  returning  to  the  puri 
fications,  farther  offices,  eternal  uses  of  the  earth." 

Yes,  they  go  their  way,  those  dismissed  atoms 
with  all  their  energies  and  affinities  unimpaired. 
But  they  are  not  all ;  the  will,  the  affections,  the  in 
tellect  are  just  as  real  as  those  affinities  and  ener 
gies,  and  there  is  strict  account  of  all ;  nothing 
slips  through  ;  there  is  no  door  out  of  the  universe. 
But  they  are  qualities  of  a  personality,  of  a  self, 
not  of  an  atom,  but  of  what  uses  and  dismisses 
those  atoms.  If  the  qualities  are  indestructible  so 
must  the  self  be.  The  little  heap  of  ashes,  the 
puff  of  gas,  do  you  pretend  that  is  all  that  was 
Shakespeare  ?  The  rest  of  him  lives  in  his  works, 
you  say  ?  But  he  lived  and  was  just  the  same  man 
after  those  were  produced.  The  world  gained,  but 
he  lost  nothing  of  himself,  rather  grew  and  strength 
ened  in  the  production  of  them. 

Still  farther,  those  faculties  with  which  we  seek 
for  knowledge  are  only  a  part  of  us,  there  is  some- 

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A  Confession  of  Faith 

thing  behind  which  wields  them,  something  that 
those  faculties  cannot  turn  themselves  in  upon  and 
comprehend  ;  for  the  part  cannot  compass  the  whole. 
Yet  there  it  is  with  the  irrefragable  proof  of  con 
sciousness.  Who  should  be  the  mouthpiece  of 
this  whole  ?  Who  but  the  poet,  the  man  most  fully 
"possessed  of  his  own  soul,"  the  man  of  the 
largest  consciousness  ;  fullest  of  love  and  sympathy 
which  gather  into  his  own  life  the  experiences  of 
others,  fullest  of  imagination  ;  that  quality  whereof 
Wordsworth  says  that  it 

".      .      .      in  truth 
Is  but  another  name  for  absolute  power, 
And  clearest  insight,  amplitude  of  mind 
And  reason  in  her  most  exalted  mood." 

Let  Walt  Whitman  speak  for  us  : — 

"  And  I  know  I  am  solid  and  sound ; 

To  me  the  converging  objects  of  the  universe  perpetually 

flow: 
All   are  written    to  me,  and  I  must  get  what  the  writing 

means. 

I  know  I  am  deathless  ; 

I  know  this  orbit  of  mine  cannot  be  swept  by  the  carpenter's 

compass  ; 
I   know  I   shall  not  pass  like  a  child's  carlacue  cut  with  a 

burnt  stick  at  night. 

I  know  I  am  august ; 

I  do  not  trouble  my  spirit  to  vindicate  itself  or  be  under 
stood  ; 

I  see  that  the  elementary  laws  never  apologize ; 

(I  reckon  I  behave  no  prouder  than  the  level  I  plant  my 
house  by,  after  all.) 

I  exist  as  I  am — that  is  enough  ; 

If  no  other  in  the  world  be  aware  I  sit  content ; 

And  if  each  one  and  all  be  aware,  I  sit  content. 

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One  world  is  aware,  and  by  far  the  largest  to  me,  and  that  is 

myself ; 
And  whether  I  come  to  my  own  to-day,  or  in  ten  thousand  or 

ten  million  years, 
I  can  cheerfully  take  it  now,  or  with  equal  cheerfulness  I  can 

wait. 

My  foothold  is  tenon' d  and  mortis'd  in  granite ; 
I  laugh  at  what  you  call  dissolution  ; 
And  I  know  the  amplitude  of  time." 

What  lies  through  the  portal  of  death  is  hidden 
from  us ;  but  the  laws  that  govern  that  unknown 
land  are  not  all  hidden  from  us,  for  they  govern 
here  and  now  ;  they  are  immutable,  eternal. 

"  Of  and  in  all  these  things 

I  have  dream' d  that  we  are  not  to  be  changed  so  much,  nor 

the  law  of  us  changed, 
I  have  dream'd  that  heroes  and  good  doers  shall  be  under 

the  present  and  past  law, 
And  that  murderers,  drunkards,  liars,  shall  be  under  the 

present  and  past  law, 
For  I  have  dream'd  that  the  law  they  are  under  now  is 

enough." 

And  the  law  not  to  be  eluded  is  the  law  of  conse 
quences,  the  law  of  silent  teaching.  That  is  the 
meaning  of  disease,  pain,  remorse.  Slow  to  learn 
are  we  ;  but  success  is  assured  with  limitless  Benefi 
cence  as  our  teacher,  with  limitless  time  as  our  op 
portunity.  Already  we  begin — 

"  To  know  the  Universe  itself  as  a  road — as  many  roads 

As  roads  for  travelling  souls. 

For  ever  alive ;  for  ever  forward. 

Stately,  solemn,  sad,  withdrawn,  baffled,  mad,  turbulent, 

feeble,  dissatisfied; 
Desperate,  proud,  fond,  sick ; 
Accepted  by  men,  rejected  by  men. 

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A  Confession  of  Faith 

They  go !  they  go  !  I  know  that  they  go,  but  I  know  not 

where  they  go. 
But  I   know  they  go  toward  the  best,  toward   something 

great ; 
The  whole  Universe  indicates  that  it  is  good." 

Going  somewhere  !  And  if  it  is  impossible  for 
us  to  see  whither,  as  in  the  nature  of  things  it  must 
be,  how  can  we  be  adequate  judges  of  the  way  ? 
how  can  we  but  often  grope  and  be  full  of  per 
plexity  ?  But  we  know  that  a  smooth  path,  a 
paradise  of  a  world,  could  only  nurture  fools,  cow 
ards,  sluggards.  "  Joy  is  the  great  unfolder,"  but 
pain  is  the  great  enlightener,  the  great  stimulus  in 
certain  directions,  alike  of  man  and  beast.  How 
else  could  the  self-preserving  instincts,  and  all  that 
grows  out  of  them,  have  been  evoked  ?  How  else 
those  wonders  of  the  moral  world,  fortitude,  pa 
tience,  sympathy  ?  And  if  the  lesson  be  too  hard 
comes  Death,  come  "  the  sure-enwinding  arms  of 
Death  "  to  end  it,  and  speed  us  to  the  unknown 
land. 

"  .     .     .     .    Man  is  only  weak 
Through  his  mistrust  and  want  of  hope," 

wrote  Wordsworth.  But  man's  mistrust  of  him 
self  is,  at  bottom,  mistrust  of  the  central  Fount  of 
power  and  goodness  whence  he  has  issued.  Here 
comes  one  who  plucks  out  of  religion  its  heart  of 
fear,  and  puts  into  it  a  heart  of  boundless  faith  and 
joy ;  a  faith  that  beggars  previous  faiths  because  it 
sees  that  All  is  good,  not  part  bad  and  part  good  ; 
that  there  is  no  flaw  in  the  scheme  of  things,  no 
primeval  disaster,  no  counteracting  power;  but 
orderly  and  sure  growth  and  development,  and  that 

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Anne  Gilchrist 

infinite  Goodness  and  Wisdom  embrace  and  ever 
lead  forward  all  that  exists.  Are  you  troubled  that 
He  is  an  unknown  God ;  that  we  cannot  by  search 
ing  find  Him  out  ?  Why,  it  would  be  a  poor  pros 
pect  for  the  Universe  if  otherwise ;  if,  embryos  that 
we  are,  we  could  compass  Him  in  our  thoughts  : 

"  I  hear  and  behold  God  in  every  object,  yet  understand  God 
not  in  the  least." 

It  is  the  double  misfortune  of  the  churches  that 
they  do  not  study  God  in  his  works — man  and  Na 
ture  and  their  relations  to  each  other ;  and  that  they 
do  profess  to  set  Him  forth ;  that  they  worship 
therefore  a  God  of  man's  devising,  an  idol  made  by 
men's  minds  it  is  true,  not  by  their  hands,  but  none 
the  less  an  idol.  "  Leaves  are  not  more  shed  out 
of  trees  than  Bibles  are  shed  out  of  you,"  says  the 
poet.  They  were  the  best  of  their  time,  but  not  of 
all  time ;  they  need  renewing  as  surely  as  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  growth,  as  surely  as  knowledge 
nourishes  and  sustains  to  further  development ;  as 
surely  as  time  unrolls  new  pages  of  the  mighty 
scheme  of  existence.  Nobly  has  George  Sand, 
too,  written  "Everything  is  divine,  even  matter; 
everything  is  superhuman,  even  man.  God  is 
everywhere.  He  is  in  me  in  a  measure  propor 
tioned  to  the  little  that  I  am.  My  present  life 
separates  me  from  Him  just  in  the  degree  deter 
mined  by  the  actual  state  of  childhood  of  our  race. 
Let  me  content  myself  in  all  my  seeking  to  feel 
after  Him,  and  to  possess  of  Him  as  much  as  this 
imperfect  soul  can  take  in  with  the  intellectual  sense 
I  have.  The  day  will  come  when  we  shall  no 
longer  talk  about  God  idly;  nay,  when  we  shall 

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A  Confession  of  Faith 

talk  about  Him  as  little  as  possible.  We  shall 
cease  to  set  Him  forth  dogmatically,  to  dispute 
about  His  nature.  We  shall  put  compulsion  on  no 
one  to  pray  to  Him,  we  shall  leave  the  whole  busi 
ness  of  worship  within  the  sanctuary  of  each  man's 
conscience.  And  this  will  happen  when  we  are 
really  religious." 

In  what  sense  may  Walt  Whitman  be  called  the 
Poet  of  Democracy  ?  It  is  as  giving  utterance  to 
this  profoundly  religious  faith  in  man.  He  is  rather 
the  prophet  of  what  is  to  be  than  the  celebrator  of 
what  is.  "  Democracy,"  he  writes,  "  is  a  word  the 
real  gist  of  which  still  sleeps  quite  unwakened,  not 
withstanding  the  resonance  and  the  many  angry 
tempests  out  of  which  its  syllables  have  come  from 
pen  or  tongue.  It  is  a  great  word,  whose  history, 
I  suppose,  remains  unwritten  because  that  history 
has  yet  to  be  enacted.  It  is  in  some  sort  younger 
brother  of  another  great  and  often  used  word,  Na 
ture,  whose  history  also  waits  unwritten."  Political 
democracy,  now  taking  shape,  is  the  house  to  live 
in,  and  whilst  what  we  demand  of  it  is  room  for  all, 
fair  chances  for  all,  none  disregarded  or  left  out  as 
of  no  account,  the  main  question,  the  kind  of  life 
that  is  to  be  led  in  that  house  is  altogether  be 
yond  the  ken  of  the  statesmen  as  such,  and  is  in 
volved  in  those  deepest  facts  of  the  nature  and  des 
tiny  of  man  which  are  the  themes  of  Walt  Whit 
man's  writings.  The  practical  outcome  of  that  ex 
alted  and  all-accepting  faith  in  the  scheme  of  things, 
and  in  man,  toward  whom  all  has  led  up  and  in 
whom  all  concentrates  as  the  manifestation,  the 
revelation  of  Divine  Power  is  a  changed  estimate  of 
himself;  a  higher  reverence  for,  a  loftier  belief  in 

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Anne  Gilchrist 

the  heritage  of  himself;  a  perception  that  pride,  not 
humility,  is  the  true  homage  to  his  Maker ;  that 
"  noblesse  oblige"  is  for  the  Race,  not  for  a  hand 
ful  ;  that  it  is  mankind  and  womankind  and  their  high 
destiny  which  constrain  to  greatness,  which  can  no 
longer  stoop  to  meanness  and  lies  and  base  aims, 
but  must  needs  clothe  themselves  in  "  the  majesty 
of  honest  dealing"  (majestic  because  demanding 
courage  as  good  as  the  soldier's,  self-denial  as  good 
as  the  saint's  for  every-day  affairs),  and  walk  erect 
and  fearless,  a  law  to  themselves,  sternest  of  all  law 
givers.  Looking  back  to  the  palmy  days  of  feu 
dalism,  especially  as  immortalized  in  Shakespeare's 
plays,  what  is  it  we  find  most  admirable  ?  what  is  it 
that  fascinates  ?  It  is  the  noble  pride,  the  lofty 
self-respect ;  the  dignity,  the  courage,  and  audacity 
of  its  great  personages.  But  this  pride,  this  dignity 
rested  half  upon  a  true,  half  upon  a  hollow  founda 
tion  ;  half  upon  intrinsic  qualities,  half  upon  the 
ignorance  and  brutishness  of  the  great  masses  of 
the  people,  whose  helpless  submission  and  easily 
dazzled  imaginations  made  stepping-stones  to  the 
elevation  of  the  few,  and  ''hedged  round  kings," 
with  a  specious  kind  of  "divinity."  But  we  have 
our  faces  turned  towards  a  new  day,  and  toward 
heights  on  which  there  is  room  for  all. 

"  By  God,  I  will  accept  nothing  which  all  cannot  have  their 
counterpart  of  on  the  same  terms  " 

is  the  motto  of  the  great  personages,  the  great  souls 
of  to-day.  On  the  same  terms,  for  that  is  Nature's 
law  and  cannot  be  abrogated,  the  reaping  as  you 
sow.  But  all  shall  have  the  chance  to  sow  well. 
This  is  pride  indeed  !  Not  a  pride  that  isolates,  but 

79 


A  Confession  of  Faith 

that  can  take  no  rest  till  our  common  humanity  is 
lifted  out  of  the  mire  everywhere,  "  a  pride  that 
cannot  stretch  too  far  because  sympathy  stretches 
with  it :" — 

"Whoever  you  are  !  claim  your  own  at  any  hazard  ! 
These  shows  of  the  east  and  west  are  tame,  compared  to 

you; 

These  immense  meadows— these  interminable  rivers — 
You  are  immense  and  interminable  as  they  ; 
These  furies,  elements,  storms,  motions  of  Nature,  throes  of 

apparent  dissolution — you  are  he  or  she  who  is  master 

or  mistress  over  them, 
Master  or  mistress  in  your  own  right  over  Nature,  elements, 

pain,  passion,  dissolution. 

The  hopples  fall  from  your  ankles — you  find  an  unfailing 

sufficiency ; 
Old  or  young,  male  or  female,  rude,  low,  rejected  by  the  rest, 

whatever  you  are  promulges  itself; 
Through  birth,  life,  death,  burial,  the  means  are  provided, 

nothing  is  scanted ; 
Through  angers,  losses,  ambition,   ignorance    and  ennui, 

what  you  are  picks  its  way." 

This  is  indeed  a  pride  that  is  "calming  and  excellent 
to  the  soul ;"  that  "  dissolves  poverty  from  its  need 
and  riches  from  its  conceit.'* 

And  humility  ?  Is  there,  then,  no  place  for  that 
virtue  so  much  praised  by  the  haughty  ?  Humility 
is  the  sweet  spontaneous  grace  of  an  aspiring, 
finely  developed  nature  which  sees  always  heights 
a-head  still  unclimbed,  which  outstrips  itself  in 
eager  longing  for  excellence  still  unattained.  Gen 
uine  humility  takes  good  care  of  itself  as  men  rise 
in  the  scale  of  being ;  for  every  height  climbed  dis 
closes  still  new  heights  beyond.  Or  it  is  a  wise 
caution  in  fortune's  favorites  lest  they  themselves 

80 


Anne  Gilchrist 

should  mistake,  as  the  unthinking  crowd  around 
do,  the  glitter  reflected  back  upon  them  by  their 
surroundings  for  some  superiority  inherent  in  them 
selves.  It  befits  them  well  if  there  be  also  due 
pride,  pride  of  humanity  behind.  But  to  say  to  a 
man  '  Be  humble  '  is  like  saying  to  one  who  has  a 
battle  to  fight,  a  race  to  run,  '  You  are  a  poor, 
feeble  creature ;  you  are  not  likely  to  win  and  you 
do  not  deserve  to.'  Say  rather  to  him,  '  Hold  up 
your  head !  You  were  not  made  for  failure,  you 
were  made  for  victory :  go  forward  with  a  joyful 
confidence  in  that  result  sooner  or  later,  and  the 
sooner  or  later  depends  mainly  on  yourself.' 

"  What  Christ  appeared  for  in  the  moral-spiritual 
field  for  humankind,  namely,  that  in  respect  to  the 
absolute  soul  there  is  in  the  possession  of  such  by 
each  single  individual  something  so  transcendent,  so 
incapable  of  gradations  (like  life)  that  to  that  extent 
it  places  all  beings  on  a  common  level,  utterly  re 
gardless  of  the  distinctions  of  intellect,  virtue,  sta 
tion,  or  any  height  or  lowliness  whatever"  is  the 
secret  source  of  that  deathless  sentiment  of  Equality 
which  how  many  able  heads  imagine  themselves  to 
have  slain  with  ridicule  and  contempt,  as  Johnson, 
kicking  a  stone,  imagined  he  had  demolished 
Idealism  when  he  had  simply  attributed  to  the  word 
an  impossible  meaning.  True,  /inequality  is  one 
of  Nature's  words :  she  moves  forward  always  by 
means  of  the  exceptional.  But  the  moment  the 
move  is  accomplished,  then  all  her  efforts  are  to 
wards  equality,  towards  bringing  up  the  rear  to  that 
standpoint.  But  social  inequalities,  class  distinc 
tions,  do  not  stand  for,  or  represent  Nature's  in 
equalities.  Precisely  the  contrary  in  the  long  run. 
6  81 


A  Confession  of  Faith 

They  are  devices  for  holding  up  many  that  would 
else  gravitate  down  and  keeping  down  many  who 
would  else  rise  up ;  for  providing  that  some  should 
reap  who  have  not  sown,  and  many  sow  without 
reaping.  But  literature  tallies  the  ways  of  Nature  ; 
for  though  itself  the  product  of  the  exceptional,  its 
aim  is  to  draw  all  men  up  to  its  own  level.  The 
great  writer  is  "  hungry  for  equals  day  and  night," 
for  so  only  can  he  be  fully  understood.  "The 
meal  is  equally  set;"  all  are  invited.  Therefore  is 
literature,  whether  consciously  or  not,  the  greatest 
of  all  forces  on  the  side  of  Democracy. 

Carlyle  has  said  there  is  no  grand  poem  in  the 
world  but  is  at  bottom  a  biography — the  life  of  a 
man.  Walt  Whitman's  poems  are  not  the  biogra 
phy  of  a  man,  but  they  are  his  actual  presence.  It 
is  no  vain  boast  when  he  exclaims, 


"  Camerado  !  this  is  no  book; 
Who  touches  this  touches  a  man." 


He  has  infused  himself  into  words  in  a  way  that 
had  not  before  seemed  possible  ;  and  he  causes  each 
reader  to  feel  that  he  himself  or  herself  has  an 
actual  relationship  to  him,  is  a  reality  full  of  inex 
haustible  significance  and  interest  to  the  poet.  The 
power  of  his  book,  beyond  even  its  great  intellec 
tual  force,  is  the  power  with  which  he  makes  this 
felt ;  his  words  lay  more  hold  than  the  grasp  of  a 
hand,  strike  deeper  than  the  gaze  or  the  flash  of  an 
eye ;  to  those  who  comprehend  him  he  stands 
"nigher  than  the  nighest." 

America  has  had  the  shaping  of  Walt  Whitman, 
and  he  repays  the  filial  debt,  with  a  love  that  knows 

82 


Anne  Gilchrist 

no  stint.  Her  vast  lands  with  their  varied,  brilliant 
climes  and  rich  products,  her  political  scheme,  her 
achievements  and  her  failures,  all  have  contributed 
to  make  these  poems  what  they  are  both  directly 
and  indirectly.  Above  all  has  that  great  conflict, 
the  Secession  War,  found  voice  in  him.  And  if  the 
reader  would  understand  the  true  causes  and  nature 
of  that  war,  ostensibly  waged  between  North  and 
South,  but  underneath  a  tussle  for  supremacy  be 
tween  the  good  and  the  evil  genius  of  America  (for 
there  were  just  as  many  secret  sympathizers  with 
the  secession-slave-power  in  the  North  as  in  the 
South)  he  will  find  the  clue  in  the  pages  of  Walt 
Whitman.  Rarely  has  he  risen  to  a  loftier  height 
than  in  the  poem  which  heralds  that  volcanic  up 
heaval  : — 

"  Rise,  O  days,  from  your  fathomless  deeps,  till  you  loftier 
and  fiercer  sweep  ! 

Long  for  my  soul,  hungering  gymnastic,  I  devour'd  what  the 
earth  gave  me ; 

Long  I  roam'd  the  woods  of  the  north — long  I  watch'd 
Niagara  pouring ; 

I  travel' d  the  prairies  over,  and  slept  on  their  breast — 

I  cross'd  the  Nevadas,  I  cross'd  the  plateaus; 

I  ascended  the  towering  rocks  along  the  Pacific,  I  sail'd  out 
to  sea  ; 

I  sail'd  through  the  storm,  I  was  refresh'd  by  the  storm ; 

I  watch'd  with  joy  the  threatening  maws  of  the  waves ; 

I  mark'd  the  white  combs  where  they  career' d  so  high,  curl 
ing  over ; 

I  heard  the  wind  piping,  I  saw  the  black  clouds  ; 

Saw  from  below  what  arose  and  mounted,  (O  superb  !  O 
wild  as  my  heart,  and  powerful !) 

Heard  the  continuous  thunder,  as  it  bellow'd  after  the  light 
ning; 

Noted  the  slender  and  jagged  threads  of  lightning,  as  sud 
den  and  fast  amid  the  din  they  chased  each  other 
across  the  sky ; 

83 


A  Confession  of  Faith 


— These,  and  such  as  these,  I,  elate,  saw — saw  with  wonder, 

yet  pensive  and  masterful ; 

All  the  menacing  might  of  the  globe  uprisen  around  me  ; 
Yet  there  with  my  soul  I  fed — I  fed  content,  supercilious. 

'Twas  well,  O  soul !  'twas  a  good  preparation  you  gave  me ! 

Now  we  advance  our  latent  and  ampler  hunger  to  fill ; 

Now  we  go  forth  to  receive  what  the  earth  and  the  sea  never 
gave  us ; 

Not  through  the  mighty  woods  we  go,  but  through  the 
mightier  cities  ; 

Something  for  us  is  pouring  now,  more  than  Niagara  pour 
ing  ; 

Torrents  of  men  (sources  and  rills  of  the  Northwest,  are  you 
indeed  inexhaustible  ?) 

What,  to  pavements  and  homesteads  here — what  were  those 
storms  of  the  mountains  and  sea  ? 

What,  to  passions  I  witness  around  me  to-day  ?  Was  the 
sea  risen  ? 

Was  the  wind  piping  the  pipe  of  death  under  the  black 
clouds  ? 

Lo  !  from  deeps  more  unfathomable,  something  more  deadly 
and  savage ; 

Manhattan,  rising,  advancing  with  menacing  front — Cincin 
nati,  Chicago,  unchain'd ; 

— What  was  that  swell  I  saw  on  the  ocean  ?  behold  what 
comes  here ! 

How  it  climbs  with  daring  feet  and  hands  !  how  it  dashes  ! 

How  the  true  thunder  bellows  after  the  lightning  !  how  bright 
the  flashes  of  lightning ! 

How  DEMOCRACY,  with  desperate,  vengeful  port  strides  on, 
shown  through  the  dark  by  those  flashes  of  light 
ning! 

(Yet  a  mournful  wail  and  low  sob  I  fancied  I  heard  through 
the  dark, 

In  a  lull  of  the  deafening  confusion.) 

Thunder  on !  stride  on,   Democracy  !  stride  with  vengeful 

stroke ! 

And  do  you  rise  higher  than  ever  yet,  O  days,  O  cities ! 
Crash  heavier,  heavier  yet,  O  storms !  you  have  done  me 

good  ; 
My  soul,  prepared  in  the  mountains,  absorbs  your  immortal 

strong  nutriment, 

84 


Anne  Gilchrist 

—Long  had  I  walk'd  my  cities,  my  country  roads,  through 

farms,  only  half  satisfied ; 
One  doubt,  nauseous,  undulating  like  a  snake,  crawl  d  on  the 

ground  before  me, 

Continually  preceding  my  steps,  turning  upon  me  oft,  ironi 
cally  hissing  low ; 
—The  cities  I  loved  so  well,  I  abandon' d  and  left— I  sped  to 

the  certainties  suitable  to  me  ; 
Hungering,  hungering,  hungering  for  primal  energies,  and 

nature's  dauntlessness ; 

I  refresh' d  myself  with  it  only,  I  could  relish  it  only  ; 
I  waited  the  bursting  forth  of  the  pent  fire— on  the  water  and 

air  I  waited  long  ; 
But  now  I  no  longer  wait — I  am  fully   satisfied — I  am 

glutted ; 
I  have  witness' d  the  true  lightning— I  have  witness'd  my 

cities  electric ; 
I  have  lived  to  behold  man  burst  forth,  and  warlike  America 

rise; 
Hence  I  will  seek  no  more  the  food  of  the  northern  solitary 

wilds, 
No  more  on  the  mountains  roam,  or  sail  the  stormy  sea. 

But  not  for  the  poet  a  soldier's  career.  "  To  sit 
by  the  wounded  and  soothe  them,  or  silently  watch 
the  dead"  was  the  part  he  chose.  During  the 
whole  war  he  remained  with  the  army,  but  only  to 
spend  the  days  and  nights,  saddest,  happiest  of  his 
life,  in  the  hospital  tents.  It  was  a  beautiful  destiny 
for  this  lover  of  men,  and  a  proud  triumph  for  this 
believer  in  the  People ;  for  it  was  the  People  that 
he  beheld,  tried  by  severest  tests.  He  saw  them 
"  of  their  own  choice,  fighting,  dying  for  their  own 
idea,  insolently  attacked  by  the  secession-slave- 
power."  From  the  workshop,  the  farm,  the  store, 
the  desk,  they  poured  forth,  officered  by  men  who 
had  to  blunder  into  knowledge  at  the  cost  of  the 
wholesale  slaughter  of  their  troops.  He  saw  them 
"  tried  long  and  long  by  hopelessness,  mismanage- 

85 


A  Confession  of  Faith 

ment,  defeat ;  advancing  unhesitatingly  through  in 
credible  slaughter ;  sinewy  with  unconquerable 
resolution.  He  saw  them  by  tens  of  thousands  in 
the  hospitals  tried  by  yet  drearier,  more  fearful 
tests — the  wound,  the  amputation,  the  shattered 
face,  the  slow  hot  fever,  the  long  impatient  anchor 
age  in  bed ;  he  marked  their  fortitude,  decorum, 
their  religious  nature  and  sweet  affection."  Finally, 
newest,  most  significant  sight  of  all,  victory  achieved, 
the  Cause,  the  Union  safe,  he  saw  them  return 
back  to  "the  workshop,  the  farm,  the  desk,"  the 
store,  instantly  reabsorbed  into  the  peaceful  indus 
tries  of  the  land  : — 

"  A  pause — the  armies  wait. 

A  million  flush'd  embattled  conquerors  wait. 

The  world,  too,  waits,  then  soft  as  breaking  night  and  sure 

as  dawn 
They  melt,  they  disappear." 

"  Plentifully  supplied,  last-needed  proof  of  De 
mocracy  in  its  personalities !"  ratifying  on  the 
broadest  scale  Wordsworth's  haughty  claim  for 
average  man — "  Such  is  the  inherent  dignity  of 
human  nature  that  there  belong  to  it  sublimities  of 
virtue  which  all  men  may  attain,  and  which  no  man 
can  transcend." 

But,  aware  that  peace  and  prosperity  may  be 
even  still  severer  tests  of  national  as  of  individual 
virtue  and  greatness  of  mind,  Walt  Whitman  scans 
with  anxious,  questioning  eye  the  America  of  to 
day.  He  is  no  smooth-tongued  prophet  of  easy 
greatness. 

"  I  am  he  who  walks  the  States  with  a  barb'd  tongue  ques 
tioning  every  one  I  meet ; 
86 


Anne  Gilchrist 

Who  are  you,  that  wanted  only  to  be  told  what  you  knew 

before  ? 
Who  are  you,  that  wanted  only  a  book  to  join  you  in  your 

nonsense?" 

He  sees  clearly  as  any  the  incredible  flippancy,  the 
blind  fury  of  parties,  the  lack  of  great  leaders,  the 
plentiful  meanness  and  vulgarity ;  the  labor  ques 
tion  beginning  to  open  like  a  yawning  gulf.  .  .  . 
"  We  sail  a  dangerous  sea  of  seething  currents,  all 
so  dark  and  untried.  ...  It  seems  as  if  the 
Almighty  had  spread  before  this  nation  charts  of 
imperial  destinies,  dazzling  as  the  sun,  yet  with 
many  a  deep  intestine  difficulty,  and  human  aggre 
gate  of  cankerous  imperfection,  saying  lo !  the 
roads  !  The  only  plans  of  development,  long  and 
varied,  with  all  terrible  balks  and  ebullitions  !  You 
said  in  your  soul,  I  will  be  empire  of  empires,  put 
ting  the  history  of  old-world  dynasties,  conquests, 
behind  me  as  of  no  account — making  a  new  his 
tory,  a  history  of  democracy.  ...  I  alone  in 
augurating  largeness,  culminating  time.  If  these,  O 
lands  of  America,  are  indeed  the  prizes,  the  deter 
minations  of  your  soul,  be  it  so.  But  behold  the 
cost,  and  already  specimens  of  the  cost.  Thought 
you  greatness  was  to  ripen  for  you  like  a  pear  ?  If 
you  would  have  greatness,  know  that  you  must 
conquer  it  through  ages  .  .  .  must  pay  for  it 
with  proportionate  price.  For  you,  too,  as  for  all 
lands,  the  struggle,  the  traitor,  the  wily  person  in 
office,  scrofulous  wealth,  the  surfeit  of  prosperity, 
the  demonism  of  greed,  the  hell  of  passion,  the 
decay  of  faith,  the  long  postponement,  the  fossil- 
like  lethargy,  the  ceaseless  need  of  revolutions, 
prophets,  thunderstorms,  deaths,  new  projections 
and  invigorations  of  ideas  and  men." 

87 


A  Confession  of  Faith 

"Yet  I  have  dreamed,  merged  in  that  hidden- 
tangled  problem  of  our  fate,  whose  long  unraveling 
stretches  mysteriously  through  time — dreamed, 
portrayed,  hinted  already — a  little  or  a  larger  band, 
a  band  of  brave  and  true,  unprecedented  yet,  arm'd 
and  equipt  at  every  point,  the  members  separated, 
it  may  be  by  different  dates  and  states,  or  south  or 
north,  or  east  or  west,  a  year,  a  century  here,  and 
other  centuries  there,  but  always  one,  compact  in 
soul,  conscience-conserving,  God-inculcating,  in 
spired  achievers  not  only  in  literature,  the  greatest 
art,  but  achievers  in  all  art — a  new  undying  order, 
dynasty  from  age  to  age  transmitted,  a  band,  a  class 
at  least  as  fit  to  cope  with  current  years,  our  dan 
gers,  needs,  as  those  who,  for  their  time,  so  long, 
so  well,  in  armor  or  in  cowl,  upheld  and  made  illus 
trious  that  far-back-feudal,  priestly  world." 

Of  that  band,  is  not  Walt  Whitman  the  pioneer  ? 
Of  that  New  World  literature,  say,  are  not  his 
poems  the  beginning  ?  A  rude  beginning  if  you 
will.  He  claims  no  more  and  no  less.  But  what 
ever  else  they  may  lack  they  do  not  lack  vitality, 
initiative,  sublimity.  They  do  not  lack  that  which 
makes  life  great  and  death,  with  its  "  transfers  and 
promotions,  its  superb  vistas,"  exhilarating, — a  re 
splendent  faith  in  God  and  man  which  will  kindle 
anew  the  faith  of  the  world  : — 

"  Poets  to  come !    Orators,  singers,  musicians  to  come  ! 
Not  to-day  is  to  justify  me,  and  answer  what  I  am  for  ; 
But  you,  a  new  brood,  native,  athletic,  continental,  greater 
than  before  known, 

Arouse !   Arouse — for  you  must  justify  me — you  must  an 
swer. 

88 


Anne  Gilchrist 


I  myself  but  write  one  or  two  indicative  words  for  the  fu 
ture, 

I  but  advance  a  moment,  only  to  wheel  and  hurry  back  in 
the  darkness. 

I  am  a  man  who,  sauntering  along,  without  fully  stopping, 
turns  a  casual  look  upon  you,  and  then  averts  his 
face, 

Leaving  it  to  you  to  prove  and  define  it, 

Expecting  the  main  things  from  you." 

ANNE  GILCHRIST. 


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